Wordiezett So much average

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

rodrig58 Tuesday Weld is very convincing in her role, I also liked her in "I Walk the Line" (1970). Best role for James Caan from all the movies I've seen him. Willie Nelson, a small but important role, well played, in his dramatic, well-known, effective way. Robert Prosky, in the role of the villain, better than in his other roles, also as a vicious guy, from other films. Jim Belushi is OK. Dennis Farina, and all the other actors, as well as associates of Prosky or bad cops, all very good. In short, Michael Mann's best movie of all I've seen. The music signed Tangerine Dream, one of my favorite bands, is cool too.

BasicLogic What we saw in this film were lot of unnecessary segments of scenes that should have been edited to cut off. The poor amateurish script of a vault cracking thief was absolutely laughable. Guy with a partner and another driver who, like what we saw in the very beginning, was another vague partner of this thief, but it never explained and appeared later. And you should have to ask, where this guy got his heists information, from whom? If his activities inevitably involved such things, how could it possible that mafia, the syndicate, the outfit or, whatever it was in New York would have allowed him to play solo so freely and and so long? The other problem of this film was that this guy actually acted very unprofessionally. His rude, head-strong behaviors were so stupid and so direct without even have the ability to think twice before he took action to deal with the situations. We saw him late for his date and showed up two hours late and exposed himself so noticeable in the bar, and even showed his gun when some of the customers saw his rudeness to his date. Then he grabbed her and forced her out of the door, then when more people saw a scene more like a kidnap, he beat up them, forced her into the car, then drove away like nuts. You think nobody would have called police for what they saw inside the bar and in the street? Most of the dialog was so exaggerated and unnatural just like those unnecessary scenes. But the real cut-off moment when I decided that this film was badly directly was when he took his woman to a all-night cafe to have a heart-to-heart chat and laid out his ground rules for this new relationship, we still saw how arrogant and how rude he was to that woman. But here, we also encountered one of the most stupid scenes and arrangements in movies: He ushered the woman and kept going further and farther to the back of the seating booth, where many other customers sat, and the woman sat down with her back right back to the next booth behind her. And then, he and she openly and so loudly pow-wow to each other with their personal bios. This scene was just so stupid and so hard to take in if you were logic enough to realize that Mann not only wrote a very bad amateurish script but also how badly he directed. A careful thief would never chose such public place to talk about his intention to have a relationship to a woman he liked to be There were so many heavily flawed holes that Mann thought he could get away with most of the moronic viewers, but I simply refused to be one of them. This is a very bad movie with many take-for-granted plots, scenarios and storyline, very crappy and absolutely unforgivable.

Predrag Thief (1981) is a gritty crime drama from writer-director Michael Mann. The film is gritty, violent, and credible. James Caan stars as "Frank," a tough professional safe-cracker who prefers to work alone, but finds himself trapped between an organized crime family and a squad of corrupt police. Mann goes for realism all the way, and styles it heavily with great camera work, a pulsing Tangerine Dream score, and great performances all around, especially Caan, and Robert Prosky as Leo, the big shot who handles the fence for half of Chicago. Leo comes across as a gentle bear early on, but he goes on to deliver some classic lines, making him a totally sinister and underrated bad guy. Caan and, especially, Ms. Weld, deliver what are (arguably) the finest performances of their careers in this powerful, violent drama, filmed primarily in Chicago. James Belushi and Willie Nelson co-star…and look for Dennis Farina in a small role. It's one of his first movies.This film is probably what acting is all about. A grim, beautiful film. It should be studied in acting classes because these are two of the true greats in cinema and you don't get to see films being made like this anymore. Michael Mann is a great director and his first theatrical film does not disappoint.If you loved his other pictures "Heat", "Collateral" and "Miami Vice" behold, this is the very film that started it all; Big Cities, Bright lights, crime and pretty women. My favorite two scenes in the film are the opening; when we see the neon lights, the fog and drizzling rain in one of the back alleys of a rough section of Chicago. The second of course would be the diner scene, between James Caan and Tuesday Weld. Real-life thief John Santucci is invaluable, first, for the technical advice on the "caper" aspects of the film (all quite fascinating and beautifully filmed) and as a quintessentially "bad cop." This one is to watch it again and again.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

tiekbane James Caan plays Frank, a professional safe cracker. He has a collage comprising images of his dream life which he must have assembled in 4th grade because what grown man makes silly collages? This film tries to be a character study, crime drama, love story and revenge flick. It doesn't fully succeed in anything. In this movie, there is sophisticated equipment, tough talk, shooting, explosions, bad cops, cityscapes, pretty beach scenes, dramatic music, etc. There is even Willie Nelson in a pointless side story that takes less then 10 minutes of screen time. All this stuff makes a stylish movie but not an interesting movie. Frank decides he wants a family, so he finds Tuesday Weld in the first 10 minutes and talks her into marrying him. Later, they buy a baby from a mobster because, presumably, Frank & Tuesday are in too much of a hurry to make a family the traditional way. James Caan affects a Brooklyn accent so thick, it's left over from the Godfather. In fact, everybody has a Brooklyn accent, even though the story takes place in Chicago! If it weren't for some bad words in the dialogue, this would play like an episode of Miami Vice. If you're happy watching pretty flickering images then Thief is an acceptable time waster but it will leave you feeling empty about it because it's characters are shallow.