Thief
Short description
Frank is a professional safecracker who specialises in stealing diamonds and has spent time in prison. Wanting to leave crime behind and settle down with his girlfriend Jessie, he takes on one more job for a powerful gangster to speed up his plans. The arrangement draws him into a world he cannot easily walk away from, and the people closest to him become caught up in the consequences.
Michael Mann directed and wrote the film, his first feature, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Ronnie Caan. James Caan plays Frank, with Tuesday Weld as Jessie, Robert Prosky as Leo Alderman, Willie Nelson as David 'Okla' Bertinneau, Jim Belushi as Barry Stratagakis and Tom Signorelli as Vincent Attaglia. It runs 123 minutes.
Made for about 6 million dollars, the film took roughly 11 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.4 from over 37,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.2 from around 900 votes. A critics' rating of 7.7 from 84 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores, suggesting broad professional approval alongside solid viewer regard.
What's left behind the scenes
- The safe that Frank cracks at the beginning of the film was completely real. It was purchased for $10,000 so that James Caan could crack it with genuine tools from a safecracker’s arsenal, following the instructions of John Santucci (1940-2004).
- The tools used for breaking and entering shown in the film were not props. They were genuine tools, and the actors were specifically trained to use them. The tools were provided by criminals who were brought onto the project as technical consultants, and John Santucci, in particular, appeared on screen as Sergeant Uricci.
- A tanker with a capacity of almost 230,000 liters was rented to keep the streets constantly wet.
- The story about the prisoner that Frank tells is based on the content of a letter from an anonymous inmate that was sent to director Michael Mann.
- The building that was blown up was actually a facade, constructed to conceal a real residential building; the house sustained serious damage during the explosion; during filming, all its residents were housed in a hotel.
- The large-scale robbery depicted in this film is based on a real crime committed by John Santucci.
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