Thief is an intelligent, slow-burning, and realistically enthralling neo-noir thriller about a safecracker’s last (or latest) big job blow-out. After a recent successful gig, successfully independent safecracker Frank (James Caan) decides to move forward with his life. He wants to retire and settle down with his new girlfriend Jessie (Tuesday Weld), leaving his illegal finesse behind. Around the same time, however, he meets new criminal financier/fence Leo (Robert Provsky), who signs him onto a new pair of jobs in exchange for much more than money—a new house, car, and even kid are a few of the favors Leo fulfills. However, even as Frank gets prepared for a new life, he quickly realizes he’s tied himself into a life-long robbery contract for Leo. A messy end to his last professional-personal bleed-through is the least of his worries as he both figures out how to survive and what he wants out of life.

Director-writer Michael Mann’s feature debut, Thief excels because of its intricate study of thievery’s personal effects. Frank, as the central safecracker and demoralized wise guy, is an empathizable antagonist of sorts; while he still goes around aimlessly punching pedestrians as they get in his way and screaming racially derogatory slurs six ways to Sunday, Caan maintains an unsteady toughness throughout that can only result from a traumatic past. For example, the best scene comes smack in Thief’s middle, when Frank begins opening up to Jessie about his prison past. He explains how his experienced necessitated a mindset where “You gotta forget time. You gotta not give a fuck if you live or die. You gotta get to where nothing means nothing.” This “nothing means nothing” attitude allows him to risk it all when robbing, as such tasks require immense effort and skill to pull off with or without getting caught later. Once explained, Frank’s erratic, almost primitive reactions to life become much more understandable; he throws hands, maintains an aggressive image, and racistly curses because he feels he has to. Being a thief of course has its major downsides—as Leo soon painstakingly reminds Frank—but Frank’s unseen but self-proclaimed long jail stints restricted him from living and learning how to live normally like everyone else.

Such rough molding gets reinforced as Frank and Jessie attempt legally adopting a kid to no avail because of the former’s criminal history. Here, he reacts similarly to elsewhere, except with a belted explanation that he was state-raised himself: “You didn’t ask about us. You didn’t ask about what kinda people we are. There is a child waiting; you are denying us him.… I was state raised. And this [adoption agency] is a dead place.” The “dead place” clearly killed Frank; his unstable anger, eyebrows always furrowed in a deadly serious flex, and lack of manners in any context keep him on the outside of most societal circles. With being state-raised then tossed around different jails all one’s life, it’s easy to see how anybody could go down the same destructive, reckless, and fatal path Frank has—even if he should not be empathized with in the end. He still throws Jessie, his new son, and his new life in the trash—“Dada!” Frank’s traumatized yet circumstantially clueless infant says as he and Jessie get into a car to flee—once Leo threatens his life. He still blows up two buildings, kills numerous people, and chucks fists at random civilians. Frank is a great Thief, but far from a good man, even if the reasons and his upbringing are tragic.

Thus, while some safecracking sequences and scene transitions are way too slow to keep things consistently intriguing (a pacing issue consistent with Mann’s filmography, as is the case in his 1995 heist flick Heat), grappling performances, revealing cinematography, brisk script work, and loads of ideas revolving around prison infrastructure/morals, societal woes and character-specific flaws make Thief a gripping thriller. For Caan fans, Mann fans, action-thriller fans and ‘80s film fans, Thief is a thoughtful and pressuring time through a crumbling Chicago.

Screens Friday, 5/23, 11:59 p.m. @ Coolidge Corner Theatre
Part of the ongoing repertory series: Tangerine Dreams: The Electronic Cinema Sound of the ’80s