Thief

Michael Mann’s Thief Still Steals the Show! 

Dive into the gritty, neon-soaked streets of Michael Mann’s debut masterpiece, Thief (1981)! In this episode of the Director’s Chartered Network, I’m joined by the awesome Kaylee (@OnceOverwithCayley) to unpack why this James Caan-led heist thriller remains a stunning gem. From Tangerine Dream’s hypnotic soundtrack to Chicago’s wet, reflective streets, we’re breaking down every detail that makes this film a must-watch. 

Thief is more than a heist movie—it’s a raw, emotional journey of a man chasing the American Dream through crime. We explore James Caan’s magnetic performance as Frank, the professional thief with a vision for a better life, and how Mann’s stylistic choices set the stage for classics like Heat. Expect insights into the film’s realism, its unforgettable characters, and why it feels like a time capsule of 1980s Chicago.

Creators and Guests

Host

Ryan Rebalkin

Guest

Cayley Landsburg

What is The Director's Chair Network?

Join Ryan and many featured guests and other hosts as they break down and review a variety of directors and their films!
So far, this podcast has featured films from Edward Zwick, John Hughes, Brian De Palma, and Michael Mann.
Soon, we will feature Edgar Wright, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, and David Fincher!

Thief - Film Review_ Michael Mann’s Debut Still Stuns @OnceOverwithCayley @murdergamepodcast.mp4
Hello and welcome to the debut episode of the Director's Chartered Network Season 3,
where we're covering Michael Mann's filmography. I'm very excited to start this journey of his films,
and I'm doubly or triply excited to have with me returning guest co-host Kaylee. Kaylee, how are you doing?
I'm wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. I am excited about this new journey. It is going to be a good one.
Yeah, let me refresh people's memories. You were, or you joined me, I should say, on Love and Other Drugs
when we covered Ed Zwick's filmography, Season 1 of this network, where we covered Love and Other Drugs.
You were absolutely fantastic on that episode. I'm sorry there's no naked bodies in this episode. I apologize for that.
We had a lot of nudity on our episode.
What a disappointment.
Yeah. Who would you like to see nude in this film? Not a lot of people to choose from.
Yeah, good point. Maybe Willie Nelson.
Okay. Well, actually, let's talk about your podcast, Plug Your Shows, because this ties into a story here.
Yeah, absolutely. I do a movie review podcast style thing on YouTube called Once Over with Kaylee, which is C-A-Y-L-E-Y. I talk about all different sorts of movies over there. In addition to that, I actually just started a new podcast called The Murder Game, which is quite evil and vile. It is a hypothetical thought exercise where people try to off as many people as they possibly can. So that's a new fun one.
Yeah.
I love it. I love it. It's funny when you guested on Love and Other Drugs off-camera, of course, or off recording, you told me that you were doing that. I felt honored that you spilt the tea with me before it came out. It was very exciting. And here it is. It's happening. So that's awesome.
And I would love to have you as a guest also.
Well, this is funny. We just keep feeding each other because, yes, absolutely. I would never invite myself, but yes, I was hoping you would. So thank you very much. I look forward to doing that with you.
And it's funny. When I came out to Once Over with Kaylee, we were covering the film. Oh, the name escapes me. Remind me the name.
Stoker.
Stoker. Thank you, of course. Fantastic film. I loved covering that film with you. And yeah, it was during that film where I told you, hey, I'm doing a Michael Mann thing. Would you like to come over on Michael Mann's journey? And you're like, yes. And I'm like, hey, you get first pick. And your first pick was the first film. That's why you're here.
So tell the audience. Well, we'll start with you. Yeah. Tell the audience. Why did you pick Thief? And do you have any history with Michael Mann as a filmographer in general?
Yes. So I picked Thief because I actually just recently saw it for the first time. I saw it about, I don't know, maybe three or four months ago for the first time. One of my co-workers recommended that I watch it.
I had never heard about it. I went into it completely blind. The only thing I knew was that James Caan was in it. And I love James Caan more than anything.
His first film, I think, was Lady in a Cage, which came out in 64. Wow. And that is one of my all-time favorite home invasion movies. So I've been a fan of his forever.
And when I watched Thief for the first time, I fell in love. It was this stunningly beautiful, gritty, it almost feels like it was made in the 1970s. And yet it's beautiful and cool and interesting. It almost feels like, and this ties into my kind of experience with Michael Mann, it feels almost like a proto-Heat movie.
Yes. You can really, really sense that this is the beginning of his filmmaking. And in my personal opinion, this is also the height of his filmmaking. I know that might be a little bit controversial to say because he's done lots of wonderful movies. But I think that he just nailed it with this. I think that the shots are beautiful. I think that the choices are beautiful. It's an utterly simplistic movie and yet stunning.
Well said. Boy, okay. Well, thanks for joining us on the first episode. That's a great intro to the film. It's interesting that you just saw it. And I will just say it was my first time viewing this film myself was for this podcast. Much like the Ed Zwick journey, and I'm going to get into Michael Mann, but much like it, there was films that Ed Zwick did in the 90s and early 2000s when I was really big into films and certain director stylings.
And again, not the Steven Spielbergs, not these, not these bigger time directors, the smaller directors, I would say, but they had an aesthetic that I enjoyed or lashed onto. And Michael Mann did that for me. So my journey with him was The Last of the Mohicans.
So I ranked the Ed Zwick films. I did a final episode where I ranked all 13 films from least to greatest. And I don't want to spoil my ranking for Michael Mann because we just started the season. But Last of the Mohicans is going to be a tough one to dethrone because there's everything about this film I love.
And of course, when I get to that discussion with that film, I'll talk about it. But it was that film that got me like, who directed this film? Who's this guy? Who's Michael Mann? And so three years later, he does Heat. I'm like, holy crap, this guy does Last of the Mohicans and Heat. And then he does The Insider. Then he does Ali. And then he does Tom Cruise's Collateral. Then Miami, you know, the public enemies with Johnny. So I just kept going with this guy.
He's like, now, I never really went back. So I did watch Manhunter. So I should say I did watch Manhunter because I love the Hannibal Lecter character from Silence of the Lambs. So I didn't even realize even with my journey with Michael Mann, this was sort of pre-internet that he had directed Manhunter. And so Manhunter, for those who don't know, was the first incarnation of Hannibal Lecter on screen, which a lot of people don't know. They think it was Anthony Hopkins, but it was actually Brian Cox. Did you ever see that one?
I did. So Michael Mann, and talking kind of a little bit more about my experience with him, he is one of those directors, sort of like what you're saying. There's a lot of movies that I saw, and I didn't realize that he was the director until much later. And I was like, oh, that's exactly what you're saying here. The same guy that did Last of the Mohicans did Thief, did Collateral. It's very interesting to see his progression as a director. I think he has lots and lots of kind of little tells that this is a Michael Mann.
Man movie, but you have to be quite familiar with his filmography to start seeing those.
Yeah. So starting this journey, again, much like Ed Zwick, I hadn't seen Ed Zwick's debut film, which was all about nothing. And I have not seen Michael Mann's film, debut film Thief. And this film has so much, I actually don't know where to begin because I feel like there's so much I want to talk about. And I actually don't know quite where to begin. But let's start off right away with the soundtrack. When this movie kicks off.
So I'm watching this for the first time, like literally just this week. So it's very, very fresh in my head. So the movie kicks off with, of course, a thief, a heist. We see James Caan and his three-person gang stealing diamonds. So they're doing a diamond heist.
And there's this musical underscore that kind of softly comes through and kicks in. You're like, wait a minute, do I like this? Oh, wait a minute, I really like this. And it just doesn't stop. And Kaylee, it doesn't stop through the whole film. What is your overall thoughts on the soundtrack?
I love it. Okay, it's all done by Tangerine Dream. Are you familiar with Tangerine Dream? I am not. Oh, my God, you're gonna love them so much. Just go listen to all their stuff. Also, if you're into heavy metal, the new Blood Incantation album features Tangerine Dream also.
So Tangerine Dream is one of these bands that a lot of metalheads really, really like them. They are one of these bands that despite the fact that they aren't necessarily heavy metal, the music stylings come across in similar ways. And so they're a band that I have been very deeply familiar with for a very long time. So the first time that I watched this movie, you get a little title card that says soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. And I was like, I'm in this movie is gonna be.
Oh, wow. So you knew who they were. You knew who they were before you started.
Yes. So I think the soundtrack is really interesting. And you're completely right. It doesn't stop. The soundtrack is electronic throughout almost the entire movie. And it's this kind of like, dreamy electronic music that is happening. And we're hearing it. The moments that don't have any music in the background become very tender, because you don't have that metallic, metallic kind of feeling.
Yeah. But something that I also noticed about the soundtrack upon this rewatch of the movie was that towards the end, I noticed that it became a little bit more jazzy, a little bit more bluesy towards the end of the movie. There's a stark contrast in how the music sounds right in the final act. And I thought that was really stunning.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tangerine Dream, I went on a little bit of a, you know, what a Wikipedia search. They have like tons of albums have been around since their first album was 1970. They're like a German is a German.
I believe so. I believe so.
I actually, I dated a girl very briefly when I was like 15, six, 15, 16. She was a couple of years, my junior and her name was Tangerine.
Oh my God. That's crazy.
Yeah. I'll just say that it was just at the time she was a bit of a bad girl. I was, I was a good boy and she was about, and that's what kind of excited young Ryan was. I was a good church boy and she was a bit of a bad girl. And it was a very exciting.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So incredible soundtrack throughout this film. So much so that I went to YouTube just to listen to it.
Yes. Beautiful. It's stunning.
And did you know that it was nominated for an award?
I did not.
Yes. For the second annual Golden Raspberry Awards.
Oh no. Why?
Second annual Golden Raspberry Awards. It was nominated for worst soundtrack for a film.
That's bonkers. They're out of their mind.
It's insane.
Now I have a couple of years.
Do you know who won that year?
Who won that year?
Yeah. That's a good question. A better podcaster would have had that ready. I actually thought about looking it up, but I was so bewildered.
But then I wonder, but then I wonder why, why that choice? And I have a couple, I don't have a couple.
One reason could be, I don't know. I don't even know. Because watching in 2025, it's just so cool. But maybe in 1981, it was lame. I don't know. Like a perspective of that kind of music was.
Yeah. It definitely, it almost felt more like an Italian giallo film than it did like a diamond heist movie. So I could imagine people being off put by it in that sense. Because if you're expecting a diamond heist, you're kind of expecting that like, really like pumping music to get you going for, oh, we're in a heist situation. And, and this was not that at all.
So perhaps it was just expectation versus reality. And now we can reflect back on it and enjoy it. Yeah. You might be onto something with that.
That's the only thing I can think of is that they thought it was because it's so on the nose for 80, 81. Maybe they did. Maybe whoever is in charge of those awards doesn't like that sound.
Yeah.
But it is, but 2025, I don't think anyone can watch this and think that's just not a cool sound.
Well, it's interesting. And I hadn't thought about that before, but it's almost kind of like the soundtrack for more recent movies like Mandy.
You know, we have things like King Crimson doing the soundtrack for Mandy. And again, that's kind of an unexpected choice, but we all enjoy it. Maybe we're just more used to it at this point to have a weird soundtrack.
Now I've got the list here in front of me. Here we go. Okay. So 1980. Okay. So here's some of the other, other nominees.
That was along. Yeah. We have Zorro, the gay blade. Okay. Okay. Music by Ian Frazier. We have Under the Rainbow. And then we have Heaven's Gate. Wow. Speaking of Heaven's Gate. It's funny that Heaven's Gate is there. This is crazy to have his gates there because I think my third season already. Can you believe this is my announcement? It's going to be Terrence Malick for sure. I think it's going to be Terrence Malick.
Oh, very exciting. Yeah. So he was nominated in his music. That's weird. Both him and Michael Mann the same year. The winner though was The Legend of the Lone Ranger in music by John Barry.
Congratulations. Congratulations. I'm glad that it was not this because it certainly did not deserve to win a Golden Raspberry for music.
And Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band. They were founded in 67 and they're currently still performing. Yep. Wow. That is insane.
Okay. All right. Now, Michael Mann, just for a little bit of history here, I didn't know anything before his filmography started in 81. So I'm like, what did he do? Like, how did he land this gig as a director? And he followed, funny enough, again, much like Ed Zwick. He worked in television.
Yeah.
So he was a writer for television. He wrote for shows like Starsky and Hutch, The Police Story. There you go. And he did do, again, like Edward Zwick, he did do a TV movie first called The Jericho Mile.
And I almost considered like, do I do this film? But no, again, sticking to it's films that are films, not made for TV films. It's made for TV films are a whole different ball and wax.
It's a different feel.
It is a different feel, especially in those days. Maybe not so much now, because now we're getting that tricky streaming area of tight films. I understand that. But back in 79, it was a prison film about a guy who was a prisoner who ended up being a runner. He did win an Emmy for it.
It's a prison film. And I think that helped him get the idea of prison life, which comes into Thief. But yeah, so he worked in television. He had this script. He had this idea, went to the big wigs, and he proved himself. Look, I can direct. I can direct. Look, I did the Jericho Mile. I won an Emmy. And they're like, sure.
And so that's kind of how his journey started on film. So they gave him a budget, five and a half million dollars. Here you go, make Thief. So that's kind of how he rolled into the film.
Okay. Now we're going to get into cast. When you saw the names come up, was there any names, minus Willie Nelson, of course, and others, that you saw like, oh, really, that they are in this film? Was there any ones that stuck out to you?
Yes, absolutely. So again, I went into this very blind. I went into it only knowing that James Caan was in it.
Yeah.
And I was completely shocked to see the name James Belushi come up. And he plays a character that's almost unrecognizable to me. Despite the fact that he was filming this right at the same time that he was filming Blues Brothers, he was infamously famous. When he came on screen, I was like, is that Jim Belushi?
Yeah, yeah.
I couldn't even tell. I mean, it was wonderful. It was wonderful. I think he really...
What did you think of his sideburns?
I liked them.
I like a good sideburn. Again, it's that like 70s gritty cop feel. This movie feels like... It's clear that man really loves exploring the underbelly of society. And he does that here. You can feel it in the sideburns. You can feel it in the rainy streets. You can feel it in everything.
There was one name that popped up. I said, really? He's in this film? But then it's the blink, you miss him role. Do you know who I might be referring to?
I'm sure that as soon as you say it, I'll be like, oh yeah, duh. No, who?
Did you ever watch... What is it? CSI? CSI?
Not really, actually.
Okay. Well, the main actor in that long-running TV show was played by William Peterson.
Oh, I don't think I'm familiar with him at all. Okay. So maybe I did blink and miss him.
This is a really roundabout way, but I'm a huge Young Guns fan, the films, the two films. And apparently, my brother sent me literally a link last night that apparently Emilio Sovez publicly announced they're doing the Young Guns 3, if you can believe it.
Oh, yay. Lucky for you.
Lucky for me. If you're a Young Guns fan listening to the show, I'm very excited.
Anyways, William Peterson was in part two. He did a great role, and a young Viggo Morrison was in that with him. They shared scenes together throughout that film.
So it's really interesting to see these bigger actors do these roles early in their career. But anyways, he was the cop in Manhunter later on.
Oh, okay. Got it. Okay.
So there's a couple of film debuts in this film, actually. So this was Michael Mann's director debut, but he had a handful of actors and non-actors, actually, doing their film debut with this film.
And William Peterson, he was the Cats and Jammer bartender that stopped Frank from getting a little bit rough with his girl, Jessie.
And I've got the scene here, but he plays the bouncer. This was William Peterson's film debut. But what's interesting is that Michael Mann got him to star like four years later, which is crazy in Manhunter.
It's amazing. That's beautiful.
Yeah. So here he is. He's breaking up the fight here between Frank and his date to be.
Hey, you. I will take you for coffee and explain.
Wait, what's the big goddamn deal?
You take me anywhere. That's a big laugh.
Maybe there is a reason. You ever think of that? Hey, I'm talking to you. Hey, take a wall, Flash, all right? Go on.
Hey, what's up, baby?
That's it. That's it. Blinky, you'll miss him. Hey, I'm talking to you. He's trying to break up the fight, which is funny because Frank owns the bar.
Also, he looks so young and pitiful. Like, if I was getting into a bar fight, that guy wouldn't be able to stop me.
Yeah. It's just funny to see him there. So that's a young, young William Peterson. Like I said, he did end up working with Michael Mann again in Manhunter. I guess he wasn't really the bouncer. I guess the credits are he was the bartender. So maybe he wasn't enough.
But it's funny because Frank owns the bar, which is played by James Caan. Frank, it's interesting that he runs a legit car dealership and runs and owns a bar, yet he still finds the need to be a thief. What are your thoughts on that aspect of the film?
He does a beautiful monologue early on in the film. When he's doing that, he's describing just this beautiful scenario where all he wants is to have, you know, the white picket fence. That's basically what he's saying. He says, I want to have the wife and the kids.
I think a lot of the time men think that the only way to be able to achieve that goal is to have an excessive amount of money. And his thieving ways might be partially due to him wanting excitement because he doesn't have anything to come home to. He doesn't have anybody to bring him coffee. But in addition to that, he needs to be able to have the foundation in order to be able to attain his goals, which is the beautiful house, the beautiful wife, the beautiful kids.
Yeah. Like it's interesting how hard criminals work to not work. Yeah. And I've always wondered about that process because they're there. I guess I get it. You know, he's breaking into a safe. He's going to get a payout of $800,000 for one day's work. That's how you can look at it. But the amount of work and effort that goes into cracking the saves, the planning, the prep work, there's a lot that goes into this and it is a big payout. Sure. Also a big risk. That's the thing. It's the risks. I admit I could never be a criminal because I'm such a, such a, such a
wimp. I couldn't handle prison. I don't want to get arrested and I can't be bothered with always having to look over my shoulder. I'd rather just drive to work, punch in, punch out and drive home. To me, it's the piece of not worrying. That's the reward. And so I've always wondered what the mindset of a criminal really is because sure you're, I guess you're raking in the, I don't know, the blow dough to a certain, but how free are you? Because you're never able to freely live.
You're always on the run. Yeah. You're always, you always feel like you're on the run. As you were describing that, it kind of reminded me of, who was it? Winona Ryder that got caught stealing a bunch of clothing and stuff that she surely could have afforded. Perhaps it's the adrenaline in scenarios like that. With Frank, we do get to know a little bit about his background. We get to know that he was in some sort of foster care. He probably didn't have a great childhood. And based on that, perhaps the only way that he was able ever to kind of feel joy was getting the adrenaline of doing something bad.
I agree. There has to be a bit of that too. I agree with you though. I could never do that. I am such a wuss. I've never stolen anything in my life. I never even stole a candy bar when I was a kid. It's too scary for me.
I've been pulled for a couple of times with like, just for speeding or whatever, something innocuous like that or broken taillight or whatever. And yeah, I mean, when I see those lights, I'm like, yep. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Whatever you get. Cooperative. You bet. You bet.
It's so scary. I would crack under pressure. Did you kill that person? I don't know. Did I? You tell me. No. Okay. Well, there's another noticeable name that came up in here as well. And that was Dennis Farina.
Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. So when his name came on, I was like, oh, I know that guy's name. But this was his debut as well. He ended up working with Man again in Manhunter. Funny enough, Manhunter. He plays the character Jack Crawford, the very famous boss of the Jodie Foster character. Name escapes me.
But then he did Michael Mann's crime story from 86 to 88. So he became, I guess, friends with Mann. They had a good working relationship. Of note, he did die himself. There's a couple of few actors from this film. This is what happens now. This film came out 40 odd years ago. He died in 2013 at the age of 69 from blood clot in the lungs.
Oh, that's so young.
That is young. That is young. Yeah. Thoughts on Dennis. He had a very small blink, you'll miss it role too, but he plays one of Neil's enforcers.
Yes. I like him a lot. There weren't any characters that I found to be unnecessary. A lot of the time when I'm watching movies, I'm like, you could have just completely removed that person. I don't need them. Everybody who was on screen in this film to me felt like they had a role and responsibility and contributed to the film.
Absolutely. Yeah. There's no, oh, why is this person here? I agree. Even when that great scene where Jesse and Frank go to the adoption agency, what a great scene that was.
Oh, that was so powerful for me. He's trying to get the wife and the kids and he's trying to do all the white picket fence stuff. And so she very briefly tells him, I can't have kids.
Yes.
And his immediate reaction to that is, well, we'll just adopt.
We'll adopt.
So I'm just asking you to be with me.
To have such a brief conversation about such a huge topic was, again, the simplicity of this film.
He loves her.
He wants her.
He will do anything to have her, to make her happy, to be able to have the life that they want to have together.
And when he goes into that adoption agency and they basically say, you cannot have a kid because of your past prison time, because of your past.
Right.
He loses it.
He loses it.
You know, you're not smart enough to take this any more than you are to recognize good parents.
Get out of my office.
You did not ask about us.
You didn't ask what kind of people we are.
There was a child waiting and you are denying us him and him us.
Who the hell are you?
Don't make a scene.
Our criteria.
Your criteria?
Your criteria are so far up your ass they can't see daylight.
This is bullshit.
It's not happening.
Let's go.
Look, I got some ABC type information for you, lady.
I was state raised.
And this is a dead place.
A child in eight by four green walls.
After a while, you tell the walls, my life is yours.
What, you grow up in the suburbs?
Yes.
Right.
Right.
He is like, kids need parents.
I know that there are other kids in your system right now because I was one of those kids and nobody adopted me.
Nobody gave me the life I wanted.
Now I'm trying to get it for myself and you're stopping me again along the way.
He basically is saying that kids who are in this agency are in prison.
And he's trying to rescue them from prison in similar ways to how he tries to rescue his friends from prison.
I feel like I explained it in a longer time than the scene actually takes.
It's so succinct and wonderful and every moment matters.
I love it.
It's also still a testament of the issues with adoption agencies.
Frank basically says, I'm paraphrasing here, where he's like, I don't get it.
We want a kid.
There's people out there who are having kids that don't want them.
They need a place.
Why is this so difficult?
And that's my question to adoption agencies right now.
Why is this so freaking difficult?
You have two able, capable people who want to love a child.
He was like, I don't care.
Give me a teenager.
Whatever it is.
I'm here to help take care of a kid who's in the system.
Let's give them a home.
And I don't know.
There's a whole other topic.
I understand.
But Kaylee, I get frustrated for these poor children who just can't get a loving home because of money and whatever else it is.
It's infuriating.
Before you make a baby the natural way, you are not given any tests to make sure that you are going to be an okay parent.
Why is it that then it is so challenging to adopt?
It has to be a horrific system.
It's horrific.
If ever somebody was to ask me what is wrong with adoption, I would direct them to that scene.
That's how perfectly done that scene is.
And then what's the point of prison and doing your time and going back to society if you can't be a part of society?
Like, hey, I did my time.
I paid the price.
Look, he stole some stuff and then he beat up some people in prison.
Sure, because prison is prison, which is just another whole other discussion.
Like, here he is.
He's gone to prison for a short time, but then it got extended by however many years because he manslaughtered two people in jail that were kicking the crap out of him.
It's just ridiculous.
The crime breeds other crime.
And then he's out and he has two businesses.
Legit.
These are legit.
He's a car dealership owner and a bar owner.
He has money.
Like, he legit has money.
He's like, hey, I want to give a kid a home.
And I have the white picket fence at home.
And they're like, no, you can't because you went to prison.
But I'm out.
What's the point of reforming, Kaylee, if you can't have a life?
You know, it's interesting, actually.
As we're talking about this, I'm just taking the devil's advocate side.
Sure.
This probably wouldn't have been a good household for a kid to be in.
Oh, dear.
I hate to say that because I agree with every single point that Frank makes.
And I think that they should have been able to adopt a child.
However, because of his side job as a thief that the agency, of course, did not know about, he was put in a lot of dangerous situations.
There was a point when his home was getting bugged.
So his phone lines were getting bugged.
It wouldn't have necessarily been the greatest environment for a kid.
That being said, he could have literally just gone somewhere else and put his sperm in a woman and then had a kid.
So it's a little bit of a gray area for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Less people think we're trying to condone this guy's extracurricular activity.
Evie ways.
Yeah.
Probably.
You're right.
Maybe they're the best father figure.
But we see that all the time in the shows like Sopranos and stuff where you have these families who have, you know, they can be a very loving father, but have this very corrupt lifestyle on the side.
Yeah.
Okay.
So a side note here.
One of the corrupt cops was played by a fellow named John Santucci.
This was also his film debut.
He also went on to do Crime Story with Michael Mann's Crime Story TV show.
Funny enough, he plays a dirty cop, but in real life, he was a thief.
Yes.
He was actually one of the consultants for this movie.
So he was the main consultant in addition to acting in it.
Is that fun?
Is that kind of fun?
It's so much fun.
I believe that James Caan said that he actually tried to base his character Frank off of John Santucci, but he decided not to go quite as wacky with it.
Apparently, John Santucci, it didn't come across to me a lot in the movie Thief, but apparently he's kind of a wacky guy.
He's a little weird and wacky.
And James Caan decided that he wanted the character Frank to be a little bit more gritty as opposed to weird.
Right.
And I like that choice.
So it's interesting that John Santucci plays a, granted, it's a dirty cop, but he plays a cop.
He's a thief in real life.
And we forgot to mention Dennis Farina.
He was a cop in real life.
Yes.
So the two of them flip-flopped roles.
Wouldn't you want to do it like that, though, if you were a cop, play a bad guy.
And if you're a bad guy, play a cop.
Yeah.
And I believe that Farina actually in real life arrested John Santucci.
What?
That is crazy.
I believe that that is a real thing, that one of the times that John got arrested was because of Farina.
That's great.
That is funny.
The believability in this movie is so, so, so strong.
Michael Mann clearly cares about giving us that realism.
And he does that by giving us these actors who also are turned consultant in order for us to really fully understand what's going on.
Well, and that's a big plus for this film, the opening heist scene.
The film starts open.
I forgot to time it, but it was like, I think it was eight to 10 minutes before the first word of dialogue was given.
And you know what it reminded me of?
Another director I wouldn't mind doing, Paul Thomas Anderson is one of them.
I love, I think I'm going to do his films as well.
So there's one of my favorite movies of all time is There Will Be Blood.
And the whole opening sequence there, there was no dialogue for like, what, 10, 12 minutes as he's actually, you know, mining for oil.
This is very slim.
And I don't know if Paul Thomas took this idea from Thief, but it reminded me of that, I don't know what the word is, styling of you're just, you're watching the career.
Granted, it's a crime, but you're watching the guys, like you're catching the activities in the middle of the activity.
Like we're thrown into their lives right at the beginning.
They're robbing.
There's no dialogue.
Yeah, we're shown almost a level of professionalism.
We can tell right off the bat, not only is he a thief, which we know from the title of the movie, not only is he a thief, but he's a very proficient thief.
He's very professional.
There's so many cuts in that opening sequence.
And you get to see close-ups of drills going into areas.
You get to see every single thing that is happening.
You are seeing a cut of exactly how it's happening.
And it's stunning and amazing.
And another thing that Michael Mann did in this film, which I'm sure you probably know, all of the tools that are being used for this were real tools.
They did not use any props in the whole movie.
They used real lock picking and vault breaking measures and all of the real tools for them.
So not only are you seeing this, but you can sense that it's real.
It doesn't feel like props.
Again, it's that professionalism.
That's right.
And I'm glad I knew that before I watched.
I did a little bit of research without trying to.
Usually what I'll do sometimes I'll watch a movie for the first time like I did for this.
I'll get about a half hour, 45 minutes into it and then write, read a little trivia without spoilers, just so I can get some of that syntax, you know, so to speak.
And that was one of the, oh, they're, they have real thieves consulting and they have, they're doing real thieving techniques with the real tools that you would use on such a heist.
Now I'm actually enjoyed a little bit more knowing that because when they do it, the big score at the last quarter of the film and they do their big score, you feel like you're just watching a robbery.
Yes.
Like it's very well done.
All the actors are just on point.
I mean, they're acting.
Yes.
But you could tell the equipment was heavy in their hands.
And my understanding too, is that the steel that they were melting through was real steel.
Like this was all.
Yeah.
Like they're really melting through steel and stuff.
Yeah.
That's so cool.
It is cool.
Great idea.
And not only that, if I remember correctly, the budget for this movie was very low.
Five and a half million.
Yeah.
That's absurdly low for what it was.
That's probably how they're able to keep those budgets low is you're not building props of all of those things.
You're just saying, ah, here's a vault that we bought from, you know, the equivalent of eBay in 1981.
And now we're just going to destroy it.
We should also note that rest in peace to John Santucci.
He died in 2004 at the age of 63.
So young.
Why is everybody so young?
I don't know.
It's scaring me.
I'm getting a little bit nervous.
But we got people who are alive.
Oh, William Peterson is still alive and well.
He's 72 right now.
Good.
And if you can believe it, our next actor, we'll talk about Jim Belushi, Mr. James Belushi.
He's 70 now.
If you can believe it.
Yeah.
And he was 26 at the time of this film.
This was also his film debut.
This was the only time he ever worked with Michael Mann.
He, of course, played Frank's heist partner.
I know in his early film career, he kind of was doing these not comedy films.
It's my understanding.
I think he did Salvador at Oliver Stone Film.
I believe he was in that one as well.
He did this one.
And he did some.
Oh, man.
I feel like he did.
Oh, then he did Ed Zwick, of course.
Isn't this funny?
I wanted to say this.
So connected.
It's so weird, Kaylee.
Like Jim Belushi was in the current.
It was a romantic dramedy.
But he was in Ed Zwick's debut film.
Isn't that crazy?
I love it.
I love it.
You know, I just recently talked about him because I was actually reviewing Blues Brothers
2000, which he was going to star in after John passed.
That's right.
And he ended up not starring in it because he took on a TV show deal.
Is that according to Jim?
No, it was not.
I can't remember what it was called now.
I went and found it.
And it was the dumbest ever 90s TV show that I could possibly imagine in my entire life.
It was about a security team or something like that.
It lasted less than one season.
And I was like, oh, you might have been able to save Blues Brothers 2000.
I don't know.
That would have been a challenge.
What year approximately?
Let's see.
Blues Brothers 2000 came out in 98.
Oh, 98.
98?
Yeah.
I know.
Isn't that so stupid?
Okay.
Oh, there you go.
I think I found it just by the title.
Total Security.
Yes, that's it.
Oh, my God.
There are some episodes on YouTube and they are garbage.
It was created by Stephen Boccio?
Yeah.
Isn't he the NYPD Blue guy in LA?
I believe so.
Yeah.
NYPD Blue, LA Law, Hill Street Blues.
But he also did Cop Rock.
So we should.
Yeah.
Not every hit.
Franklin Avenue flasher.
Struck at two outdoor weddings and a school picnic so far this month.
Male cock, 6'3".
Look for tattoos in unusual places.
Okay, that's it.
And hey, hey.
Let's be careful out there.
Let's be careful out there.
We had a 187 at the 7-11 on the corner of 4th and Main.
Two cock cadence of the mail for swaging for the bullet through the cashier's brain.
Moving on.
It was funny to watch Jim Belushi in that absolutely horrible failed television show.
I see.
And then go and see him in Thief.
And I was like, whoa.
What a difference.
Only six episodes there.
It was canceled mid-season.
It was one of those where it was like, yeah, the first six episodes were shown and then it was unaired.
There was 13 episodes filmed, but the last seven were unaired.
Isn't that funny?
But he went on to the big run of According to Jim or whatever.
According to Jim, yeah.
Eight seasons?
He found his way.
Yeah.
You know what?
If you get into a sitcom like that, like Friends, Seinfeld, According to Jim, even if you're not Leonardo DiCaprio type actor and you get a TV sitcom gig, just be grateful.
Because that's a job.
It's going to pay the bills for a long time.
Oh, absolutely.
So, yeah, he was 26 in that film, if you can believe it.
He looked old, 26.
He looked so much older than that.
Remember the scene where he's playing with his girlfriend at the beach and he tackles her in the ocean?
He tackles her.
Did you catch that, too?
He, like, lays around like a football tackle.
Can you imagine that's you?
But you're about the same size and build as a poor lady.
And if you imagine, like, Jim's 200 pounds.
They're, like, being playful in the ocean and he's going to be playful and then instead of being playful, he just knocks her out.
If I had a significant other that did that, we wouldn't be talking for two days.
That's what I was thinking.
You're in trouble, mister.
Isn't it funny the scenes that stick out?
I don't know if it's, again, is it because it's 1981?
Did men just tackle their woman in the beaches?
But it seems like such odd behavior to lay her out.
Like, even if that was your buddy at the beach, like, whoa.
It's an aggressive tackle where we're just, like, splashing in the water.
I feel like he was trying to be playful and it just did not work in the slightest.
It was very bizarre.
All right.
Now we have sort of a cameo appearance.
Really, it's just, well, it's two appearances that Mr. Willie Nelson has in this film because the one in the, you know, the jail cell phone call conversation and the death spoiler.
Yeah, we should always say, of course, if you're already following me on these film journeys, we don't really do the plot in order.
We just talk about things when things come up to us and things will be spoiled in the meantime.
But this is a movie you have to watch regardless.
Okay.
Do you know his age in this film without looking up?
Did you know?
No.
He is.
Do you want to guess?
I never know his age.
Okay.
Do you want to guess?
You have to guess.
Just guess.
He was very wrinkly.
Yeah, he was.
I'm going to go with 45.
Oh, wow.
Is that close?
He was 47.
Okay.
I felt like if you were asking me the question, it must be lower than I would think.
He looks like he's 65.
He looks like he's 65.
And every year of 65.
And I don't understand this.
This is like legit.
I don't get it.
Like, I don't mind saying, Kaylee, I turned 50 this October.
You look amazing.
You look nothing like how he looked.
Well, I'm three years older than Willie Nelson in this film.
How is that possible?
It's crazy.
The wrinkles in his forehead looked like the wrinkles in his forehead from, you know, 1990.
He was playing that age because he was a father figure to Frank in prison.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So he was 47.
He acted the old.
This was funny because he knows he's 47, but he's acting like he's dying of old age in the film.
Kaylee, he's dying of old age in the film, essentially.
He still has a very beautiful head of hair, though.
I will say that.
Sure.
His hair.
There were like times where I was looking at his forehead wrinkles and then looking at his hairline.
And I was like, wow, look at that hair, buddy.
It didn't seem like those two things matched up.
Yeah.
I'm not trying to be ageist.
That's not my intention at all.
He's like Tom Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman.
There's certain actors.
Always old.
They're always old.
Like you go look at a Tom Lee Jones high school photo.
He looks like he's 45.
Like, why?
Why are they so old?
I don't get it.
He's still alive, though.
He outlived everyone here.
He's 91 as of right now.
That's amazing.
And apparently he's about to release his 154th studio album.
Whoa.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
That includes greatest hits and what have you.
But I think he actually has like standalone studio albums.
I actually looked it up the other day.
I think it's like 113 legit studio albums.
Oh, my God.
That's amazing.
That's incredible.
And he was great in this movie.
Like you mentioned, he's only in a couple of scenes.
But I thought that he did a really, really beautiful job as Dave, a.k.a. Oak or Oakla.
It's Oakla.
Yeah.
That must mean something.
Oakla.
I was assuming that it meant Oklahoma.
Like it was a name.
Like he was from Oklahoma.
That was.
Bingo.
You got it.
Yeah.
I think that's it.
Because he's a country guy.
He has a country voice.
He doesn't change his voice for the film.
He's like, yeah, I'm a country guy.
He's locked up.
And he's a thief, too.
For our listeners and viewers, he basically trained Frank on how to be a better thief.
He kind of gave him this knowledge.
Which I found kind of like this is where it's kind of the movie silliness a little bit.
The idea that he's in prison.
Okay.
This is what you need.
Okay.
You need this kid.
You need this.
Granted, it's not impossible.
But he's basically like a living YouTube channel for Frank.
He's like, learn and listen for me on how to rob banks and rob safes.
I guess that is kind of what it was like in the 80s, though.
You know, that is how we got our information was from our friends.
Yeah.
Which wasn't always the best information.
I'm glad we had people other than my friends tell me how to do things.
He was basically Frank's mentor.
He ends up dying in the film, which wasn't really quite the payoff.
There wasn't much to it after that.
It was sort of like, oh, he's dead now.
I don't recall any real emotional oomph from it.
Do you?
I think that that's one of the things that I really enjoy about the film is that we have these big emotional moments.
For example, when Jessie says that she can't give birth to a child naturally, and then we have Okla passing away.
And they're so quick.
And a lot of the time in real life, that is kind of what ends up happening, is that even though we feel these deep emotions about them, we can't actually dive into them, especially in the moment that they're happening.
And so to watch characters very simply just say, I'm in pain, and now I'm walking away from it and continuing my life, it feels very powerful to me.
Yeah.
Very well said.
Even though the reaction is small, I still have the big emotional feels from it.
Okay.
All right.
I'm glad Willie's doing okay, though.
He's still with us.
Okay.
Next we have, and now this is a gentleman I didn't recognize by the name.
So when the name came up in the credits, but when his face came on, it's like, oh, I've seen that guy before.
His name is Robert Prosky.
He's the one that plays, of course, Frank's big nemesis, the mob boss, Leo.
Okay.
Yes.
And he did a great job.
This was his film debut.
Wow.
Yeah.
How old was he?
Guess.
Oh, God.
I would say 65.
He's my age.
No, shut up.
He's 50.
He looks so much older than that.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah.
So he was 50.
Shut up.
He was born December 13th, 1930.
That's insane.
So he was 50.
Yeah.
During the filming of this film.
I was like, wow, good for him for starting acting when he was so old.
But I mean, I guess 50 is a little bit old to start acting, but Jesus.
I thought that's astonishing to me.
Now, he did great.
The reason why he was so good as an actor, he did a decade and a half of film staged and
film.
I'm sorry.
Staged and plays Broadway and stuff.
So he's one of those stage actors.
It goes, you know what?
I'm going to try my hand in front of the camera.
So this was his first film.
And then he went on to do, if you go look at his filmography, tons of stuff after.
So once he kind of, I hate the term pop discharity, but once he got in front of the camera,
he did like TV shows, movies, and you'll see, oh, that's what he's in.
That's what he's in.
You'll recognize he's been in tons of stuff.
In fact, he did a cop show.
What was it called again?
He was like a sergeant or chief.
Hill Street Blues.
There you go.
Speaking of, yes, Stephen Bacho.
Hill Street Blues.
He was part of the main cast.
He plays Sergeant Stan Jablonski.
So there you go.
He went on to do other stuff.
A lot of the time when people make the transition from stage acting to film, they tend to be a little over the top, shall we say?
Because they're used to being on a stage where they have to project to the back of a room.
I didn't find him to be that at all.
I found his acting to be quite pleasant and not a caricature of what he was supposed to be.
So I'm impressed that he made that transition so seamlessly.
And he played a great, because he looks like he might be soft.
And they picked the right actor because he's older.
I mean, look, he falls into the Willie Nelson syndrome where he looks a little bit older than he is.
But he looks older and soft.
He does have a soft feature, soft face, kind of, you know, a bit of a gut and sort of looks out of shape.
So he doesn't look like he'd be scary.
But what I like about that, though, is that he is.
And I'm going to show a scene right now.
This is at the end of the film when it's great direction.
So Frank is on this.
Really, guys, spoiler alerts here.
So Barry's just been killed.
Frank's now captured after that killing because he's been double crossed by Leo.
But Frank tells him to have flop.
I don't care.
And they're telling him, no, you can't get out of this business.
I own you.
I own every part of you.
So we're going to see that scene.
This is what's great when you see this guy.
But then you see him be bad.
It's scary.
Yes.
You treat what I tried to do for you like shit.
You don't want to work for me.
What's wrong with you?
And then you carry a piece in my house.
You one of those burned out, demolished wackos in the joint.
You're scary because you don't give a fuck.
But don't come on to me now with your jailhouse bullshit because you are not that guy.
Don't you get it, you prick?
You got a home, car, businesses, family, and I own a paper on your whole fucking life.
I'll put your wife on the street to be getting ass by Puerto Ricans.
Your kid's mine because I bought it.
You got him on loan.
He is leased.
You are renting him.
I'll whack out your whole family.
What do you think of that scene?
Scary.
Terrifying.
Also, I still cannot believe that he's 50.
I know that he just said a whole bunch of awful things, but I just can't get over that.
He's 50.
Yeah.
That's insane.
Well, you look fantastic for 25.
So you're fine.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're fine.
Thank you.
Keep saying words.
Keep saying words.
Yeah.
Well, people, I've seen this stuff on Reddit.
It was kind of off topic.
But there seems to be, people have argued they've had harder upbringings.
That could be it too, that they've had rougher upbringings.
Like, you look at kids from like 1930s, you know, Europe, and they look like they're 12 years old, but they look like they already have two mortgages and a divorce type looks to them.
So I think there is something to that.
They also say hairstyle is a big thing of it too, and makeup, things like that.
So I think it's like hairstyles, design, clothes, things like that.
Also, maybe we just feel so young because we're enjoying our lives so much.
There's something to that.
And I honestly believe, not to say Willie Nelson seems very happy.
He's always happy because he's always high, but he's living a good life.
But I think there is something to that when you are a positive person.
I think people can age themselves when they're miserable.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So great scene there.
And I guess I should just show really quickly.
We see Leo looking down.
So the camera is on the ground.
And so we have the actor playing Leo, Robert Prosky, looking at the camera, which is, but it's Frank's point of view, which is really cool.
We're seeing Frank's point of view as he's lying on this cold concrete in this factory or whatever.
Having Leo breathing down his face.
But what I love is Leo, played by Robert, is actually talking to a camera, which is kind of cool.
So it's a great monologue that he gets to do in front of the camera.
But then we see Frank's perspective.
And I love James Kahn's acting here.
Tell me what is his face here, his face.
Is he scared?
Is he angry?
Is he both?
Is it resolved?
Do you know the scene I'm talking about?
I do.
Okay.
Are we going to watch it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I want to rewatch it.
People will be eating for lunch tomorrow in their wimpy burgers and not know it.
You get paid what I say.
You do what I say.
I run you.
There is no discussion.
I want you work until you are burned out.
You are busted.
Or you're dead.
You'll get it.
You got responsibilities.
Right there.
Yeah.
What is that facial expression?
It's a unique expression that James Kahn is doing.
What is he doing there?
It is.
It looks to me like realization, maybe.
So a part of that would be fear.
I definitely agree that it leans more on the fear than the anger side of things.
I think that it's probably, oh, shit.
I finally got all of the things that I wanted.
I got the white picket fence.
I got the wife.
I got the kid.
I got all of the things that I had been desiring, and all of those things can be taken away because of my life of crime.
And we should let our viewers know if they really aren't going to watch this film.
During that dialogue there, he's talking about his kid.
I've got the papers on your kid.
Because James Kahn's character, Frank, realizing he can't get a child legally, goes the route of illegally adopting a child from unwanted babies from mothers who don't go through the system proper.
Which Leo organizes.
Yeah, Leo's.
Yeah.
Are they breeding babies?
Is Leo breeding babies?
Are these?
It's ambiguous.
Yeah.
It is definitely ambiguous.
I was curious about that.
The simplicity of this movie works both in its favor because it allows my mind to wander and not in its favor because I don't have all the answers to the questions.
Yeah.
He made it seem like when he approached Frank about, hey, I can get you a baby through different channels.
I was wondering the way he was able to do it because he says, I can get you any kind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He named a bunch of races.
Yeah.
He said, you want a boy?
You want a girl?
He said.
What happens?
You state your model.
Black, brown, yellow, and white.
Boy or girl?
Where from?
A couple of ladies.
I got babies to sell.
They're wrong.
They sell.
It's not that kid's fault that his mother's an asshole.
And you're not buying the mother.
You're not going to get a kid on a straight.
I want a boy.
Done.
Done.
You got a boy.
Yeah?
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
What else you want?
He basically had, you know, it was going in to pick a pair of jeans from the gap.
Like, that was how easy it was going to be to get a baby.
So, it definitely seems like there is something more than just.
That's right.
That he's.
Here's a baby.
A baby making factory of sorts.
Yeah.
And the way the baby was given to the mother to be Jesse, like in the lobby of some hotel
or something.
Here's the baby.
Off you.
No paperwork.
Just put a baby in your arms and off you go.
Yeah.
My first thought about that was, but how will they do their taxes?
What are they going to do?
What about when that kid goes to school?
How do you have a social security number?
You pay for it.
I'm sure in that world of crime, they just.
Can you create fake social security numbers?
Like, especially in today's computer.
I have no idea.
This is 1980s.
You could have probably done anything.
I guess what you do is you just, you say, hey, I had a baby.
I did it at a home.
I ended up having a home birth.
Here's a baby that I have put the kid in the system now.
You almost could.
You could just say, yeah, we had the baby at home and we're just coming around to doing
the paperwork on it.
We just didn't want to.
We didn't know what we're going to do with it.
But here we are.
And there's no DNA testing back then either.
Yeah.
Women, not frequently, but a thing that can happen is that a woman cannot realize that
she's pregnant.
So you could basically do that.
You could say, I didn't realize that I was pregnant.
I gave birth at home and now here's a baby.
So do the things that it needs.
Yeah.
Crazy.
All right.
Good stuff by Robert Prosky.
And yeah, he died.
Did we mention that?
So he died in 2008.
He lived to 77 from complications following heart surgery.
That's too bad.
Wow.
So he's there to get surgery.
And then it's scary.
That's why you do sign that paperwork before you get surgery.
Yeah.
So tragic.
Okay.
So the next on the cast, and this is an actress I've never heard of before.
Her name was Tuesday.
Her name is Tuesday.
Well, she's still alive at the age of 81.
She was 37 at the time of this film.
Again, she looked a little bit.
She was a lovely woman.
So my age.
Do you want me to keep that in?
Oh, no.
I don't care.
Oh, this is like breaking news.
37.
37.
Well, you look amazing.
That's what I mean.
So you look 10 years younger.
Older or younger?
Yeah.
Older.
Yeah.
Like if you were with her and she was like, let's say you put you as you are right now next
to her, the diner.
Hey, Frank, I want you to meet my best friend since I've known since grade school.
I would be like, are you sure you're not her mom or like way older sister?
No, I'm not even joking.
She just, again, she's lovely.
But if you told me she was 45 in that film or 48.
Yeah, you would have believed it.
Yeah.
It's funny that you talked about the guys and feeling the heaviness
of realizing that they were your age.
I actually did not.
I did not end up looking up her age, but I was very curious about how old she was because
to me, she looked very old, but she wasn't wrinkly and women tend to wrinkle.
And not only that, in the diner scene, at one point, she puts her hand on the table and
you can see the back of her hand.
And women's hands usually age them very much.
Like usually, no matter what a woman looks like in the face, you can really see in their
hands how old they are.
And she looked like she had a teenager's hands.
And I was like, is she 20?
And I was like looking at the back of my hand and I was like, oh my God, I'm an old wrinkly
old lady as I was watching this movie because her hand looked so beautiful.
How are your hands?
How are your hands?
You don't have to show.
Disgusting compared to hers.
Oh, stop it.
Oh, her hands were, I really, I noticed that.
But it's funny that we were both noticing these aging things as we were watching this film.
It's weirdly, we're going to get to James Caan's age.
Do you know his age in this film yet?
I don't.
Okay, we'll get to it.
Okay, so this is a fascinating discussion.
I know people are like, shut up about the ages.
I'm sorry.
I find it kind of fascinating because as I get older, you start to realize like, oh, these
people represent me like this must be my, like, where would I be in this journey of
life that this film is showing?
Right.
Yeah.
So Tuesday Weld, she had past notable work in movies like Pretty Poison in 68, play it
as it lays in 72 is looking for Mr. Goodbar in 77.
This was her only project with Michael Mann as well.
Yeah.
The one thing about this and tell me if I missed something, cause you've seen it more
than once now.
I've just seen it the one time.
There's no real indication before their quote unquote first date where they go to the diner
that they ever had a relationship.
Am I missing some sequence of events or history?
Because tell me I'm wrong.
It's one of the, it's probably the, I'd say it's the weakest part of the film because it's
so bizarre.
Yes.
He kidnaps her.
Yes.
That's how he courted her.
He courted her by kidnapping her.
Was that a forceful first date?
Am I crazy here?
Yes, it absolutely was.
I think that you're exactly correct.
However, I will say as a woman, I have been courted in similar ways to not that, not, I
haven't been forcibly removed from a restaurant and brought to a diner, but I have been courted
in ways where I've not necessarily been interested in a guy.
And then he's been so charming in a first meeting, which I think that he was so charming during
the first meeting in the diner.
But once he gets to the diner, yes.
But before he, he dragged her.
Yeah, as a woman, don't always know how to handle that situation.
So I would imagine that she was just kind of going along with it.
And especially a 1980s woman who had far less voice than I do now.
I think that she would have just gone with him kind of like she did.
She did resist a little bit.
She didn't seem happy to be getting dragged out.
Well, sort of started at the bar where William Peterson came to try to pick up the fight.
Frank pulls his pieces back off.
And then they're kind of like, sure, go ahead and take her, I guess.
I guess you're just going to have to take her.
You're holding a firearm.
So I guess you're just going to take her away.
Yeah.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Do what you got to do with her.
But that's a very interesting perspective.
Again, thank you.
Speaking of, of course, you would be the female.
The idea where she maybe felt, you know, she feels overpowered physically.
Frank is, he is a dangerous person in the sense that he lives a dangerous life.
He was in prison.
He's been around danger.
He probably doesn't know how to court someone.
His intentions aren't, I am going to hurt you.
His intentions were, hear me out.
Just hear me out.
And we're going to get to some of the, a couple of scenes from the, from the diner.
Cause these are key scenes in the film, I think for both actors and characters.
But yeah, Tuesday.
Well did it.
Otherwise she did a great job.
I sometimes no offense to male driven.
I'll say male driven films.
Sometimes the female can be either underwritten or underacted or just almost like, why are you here?
But I thought Tuesday did a great job playing Jesse overall.
Your thoughts too?
I did too.
I did too.
She, there was one scene and I don't know why it sticks out so much.
At one point when Frank is about to buy her a house, they go and see this big, beautiful house.
And there is a shot where behind her are these beautiful picture windows.
And she's just kind of standing and she puts her hands on her hips and she's like, oh, why are you looking at me like that?
And it, it felt so sincere.
It felt like that is truly a moment between these people where they're falling in love and they're getting excited about this life that they're building with each other.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Well, we're going to get to both Tuesday and James with the diner scenes.
We'll talk about James now.
James Kahn.
And I, I forgot when I started watching this film, cause it was so recent.
I'd forgotten when I started watching this film that he has passed away.
Like I, I think I lodged it.
It was recent.
2022.
He died.
Grant, he lived a good life.
He died at the age of 82.
That's a full life.
He aged very well.
And in many ways, I don't remember him being like, oh, I guess he did die in his eighties,
which is, that's a full life that's past the average American health.
I think, or age, I should say.
He died of a heart attack though.
Wow.
Yeah.
Poor guy.
Okay.
So I of course know him from, you know, the Godfather, of course, the Godfather and elf.
Yes, of course.
Obviously.
Those two films.
Two most important roles.
Yes.
Now I've seen them in other stuff as well, but I wouldn't say, unlike you, Kaylee, I wouldn't
say that I was a fan.
Like I gotta see James Kahn.
Of course, Godfather is just incredible.
Like everyone's great in that film.
But after watching this, this is our James Kahn part of the show.
So after watching him in this, I'm like, holy, this guy is fantastic.
He's fantastic.
Why wasn't he nominated for this role?
This movie could not have survived without him being a success.
And he was a success.
I've used the word simple to describe this film so many times, but again, it is a very
simple plot.
Guy is a thief.
Guy wants to have a different lifestyle.
Guy decides to do one more job in order to be able to achieve that lifestyle.
If James Kahn had not given us everything, this movie would have been trash.
It would have been boring and it would have been schlock and it would have been something
for us to be making fun of at this point.
But he performs so successfully in every scene.
He's thoughtful.
He's endearing.
Despite the fact that he's a hardened criminal, I fall in love with him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's charismatic.
I mean, obviously, I don't swing that way.
But as a man watching another man in a film, I was enamored by his mannerisms, the gait of
his walk.
It's like, is he injured?
Did you just catch the way he was like, the way he kind of like, kind of like does this
shuffling kind of walk that he does?
Does James Kahn walk this way?
Because it was such a natural look to a fake walk that I was like, did I miss an injury that
I wasn't aware of?
And then it occurred to me, he got beaten.
The crap kicked out of him in prison that I think he was showing that his body's been damaged
since that injury because he was beaten near to death.
If I remember correctly in that story, they gave it the diner.
I've got a couple of scenes here, but the way he speaks, the clipped way that he speaks,
apparently James Kahn said that he didn't want to use any contractions in his dialogue,
that nothing was combined.
Everything was a word and clipped.
And there was like a weird dialect that he put in his, the way it's sort of gangster like,
but not gangster.
Like, do you know what I mean by that?
Oh, I do.
I absolutely do.
He toes the line of, I am a bad guy versus I am just a guy who wants to have a normal life.
And I think that you're right in his diction.
He absolutely does that.
There's the word.
Thank you.
He was 40, by the way.
That seems about right to me.
I could imagine.
Yeah.
He looked every year as 40.
Great physique.
There's the beach scene where, of course, Jim Belushi tackles, kills his girlfriend on the beach.
James was there too shirtless.
And he looked very hairy back.
Very hairy front.
Everything was hairy.
Hairy arms.
There's a couple of scenes where he's shirtless in the mirror.
You can see the classic, like the man shades down to his neck where his shirt line is.
So you don't see it.
Look, I'm grateful.
Whatever DNA gods put me together.
I don't even have hair on my arms.
All I can say is I'm glad I'm not that kind of hair because it's like, oof.
But great physique.
Great actor.
Underneath all the hair.
Yes.
Underneath all the hair.
Well, some women really love that hair.
Are you not a fan of that hair?
You know, I am so 50-50 on that.
Indifferent?
Yeah.
It completely depends on the guy.
Completely depends on the guy.
So you have people that look like that who have hairy bodies.
And then you have James Caan who has a hairy body.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
He was fantastic in this film.
So after watching this film, this has happened with the Ed Zwick films that he did.
There were certain actors that I never considered or thought much of until I saw a film.
Laura Dern was one of those when we did Trial by Fire.
She was like, oh, I think I really like her.
And I never thought I would like certain actors that way.
That's how I felt about James.
I was indifferent about him.
When he's in a film, he's always very good.
But I never think I'm going to go see more films.
I think I really need to dig into his past filmography.
And you mentioned that early one where he plays a home invasion.
So I think I might have to go there.
I highly recommend that.
That's Lady in a Cage.
And that is the movie that I watch every 4th of July.
So we're coming up into the summer here, not too far away.
And I would highly recommend watching that as your 4th of July movie.
That is funny.
I love that you have these ceremonies with your films.
You've mentioned that a few times in your podcast.
Every year I watch that on 4th of July.
You might be the only human on the planet that does that.
Well, it is set on the 4th of July.
I will say that.
Sure.
So is the movie Born on the 4th of July with Tom Cruise.
And I bet you there's people who probably don't even do that film.
That's pretty on the nose.
Yeah.
But that's funny.
Good for you.
Okay.
Now that we've talked about both James and Tuesday, let's look at the first scene here.
This was an interesting part of the whole movie was the fact that Frank carries with him.
This is very odd.
Like this movie is a near perfect fun film, but there's some holes or issues I have with the film as far as like plot devices that are like just odd.
Like again, him kidnapping her for the date, but then she basically wants to marry him by the end of that same date, which is fine.
It's just a movie.
I get it.
But the character Frank, you'll hear the dialogue, but for our non YouTube watchers, he's going to show her a picture of a collage where he's taken newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, and he's basically collaged his, you know, when young, usually it's young woman, young girls, I'll have what's called the, what do you call that?
Dream trunk?
A vision board.
Vision board.
Well, what's the, what's the trunk or chest that girls have?
Hope chest.
Oh, I don't know.
Hope chest.
Oh, yeah, you're right.
Have you heard of those things?
The hope chest.
Don't they put in there like things that they hope, you know, bridal this or that for their adult life.
So Frank has his own little vision board or hope chest of a collage.
So things that he's basically is a white pick of fans, kids, Okla is in it as well.
She mentions that all the things that are important in his life.
But what's crazy here, Kaylee, is that that's why I was confused about their past relationship.
Because he says to her, you're a part of this collage.
That meant, you are the wife that I want.
This right here is you.
This represents you.
This represents you, yeah.
Okay.
Holy, it's stalkerish type dialogue, but yeah.
It's a little bit weird.
Okay.
So let's watch a little bit of that scene here.
Stop me from making that happen.
And right there, that would be you.
Who's the old man here?
Who's that 47-year-old man out there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who's that?
Oh my God.
Crazy.
Sorry.
It's just funny.
So that's Willie Nelson.
You might remember him from such hits as...
Anyways, it's just funny.
That always killed me.
Who's that old man there?
That just made me realize, actually.
So James Caan was 40 and Willie Nelson was 47.
So the father figure was seven years older.
Seven years.
And did you catch Frank's character, though, was about 35 in the film.
The math was given.
He talked about when he was put in prison.
I think he was there for 11 years.
I think he got out when he was about 30, 35.
Because he talked about it's been four years since he's been out of prison or something to that effect.
So I think he's in his mid-30s here, essentially, is the character.
So he's in his mid-30s, and Willie Nelson looks like he's 60-ish.
So that makes sense.
So the characters make sense on kind of how they look, but not in real life their ages.
Yeah.
Okay.
He's David Ocler-Bertineau.
He's a master thief.
A master.
And a great man.
He was like a father.
He taught me everything that I know about what I do.
And I told him about you.
Did you cut these out from magazines and...
Yeah, newspapers, whatever.
Why do you have all of these dead people?
Inside, you are on ice from time.
You can't even die right, you know, in here.
Now that part I never understood.
In his montage or collage of photos, she says, why all these dead people?
I think she's referring to those pictures of people who seem to be black and white, like
people who've come and gone.
But he goes on explaining that when you're in prison, it's an interesting way of saying
that your time is on ice.
So you're frozen.
Time is frozen.
I just like the way he says that your time is on ice.
That's what I think he meant by that, that your time is frozen while you're in prison.
That you can't even die right in prison.
What an interesting analogy of prison life.
Oh, absolutely.
It doesn't really explain the dead people or the people who may have passed on in the collage,
but what do you think it might mean?
The collage is more the metaphor for what he wants.
So he wants to make sure that his time is not on ice anymore.
Kind of the way that you were describing when we were talking first about this, you were saying,
you know, I would never want to be on the run from somebody because I would have so much
anxiety about being on the run.
Perhaps what he's talking about is getting his literal time back because he won't have
to be on the run anymore because he won't be doing crime anymore.
I could see that as sort of an interpretation of it.
That one is definitely a tricky one.
I feel like I'd have to watch that scene like 20 times to fully get it.
What did you think about it?
What was your interpretation?
I don't know.
I watched the scene four times for just today in preparation when I got the scene ready.
I got it more ready just to show the collage because the collage is the overall.
It's like the, what do you call it?
It's the symbol of his life where he's trying to get his life literally together.
Like this picture represents.
Is that the secret you're supposed to envision your success?
Is that the secret, right?
So this is, he's doing the secret before the secret.
He's like, this is where I want to be.
That's great.
He's visioning his success, his family, his picket fence, and he's almost there and he
almost gets it.
But alas, well, I don't want to spoil too, too much.
But the next scene I want to show you from the same time, it's a long scene.
So I'm not going to show the whole dynasty.
It's in this kind of the, it's James Caan's favorite scene in the film.
And it was the most fun to get acting.
And there's a reason for that.
But what I love how the scene ends, Tuesday's acting is really good.
She's really just falling in love with this guy at this table.
He's basically invited, he's invited her because they've now already have taught kids.
He says that I want my life with you.
And what I love is how the scene ends is they hold their hands together over top of the collage.
I thought that was a great little metaphor of how the scene ends.
Look at how beautiful her hand is.
Yeah.
I'm going to be able to see it.
So she says right away, I'm not ready.
I don't think I can do this.
I have my life.
And this kind of complicates things.
And he talks her into it.
Oh, I also want to say it's very subtle.
But for our listeners, you hear that underscore tone?
If there's a music, in fact, it's so quiet when I was listening to this.
I was like, is there something playing?
Because I was listening to my headphones.
I took off my headphones and see if something was playing outside of my headphones.
But that's what I love about this whole film.
This whole scene has that, yeah, just that synth sound behind it.
It's not quite an instrumentation score that you would suspect.
But what I love is just, listen for it.
It's just there.
See, and I have my life.
So I can't.
What?
I mean, what?
What is going on in your life that is so terrific?
Mine's been a mess.
She likes that.
I was just thinking, you know, that just maybe between the two of us.
That we can make something happen, something special, something really nice.
You know?
So I'm just, I'm just asking you to, uh...
Look, and I got a way now that I can make it happen faster.
I mean, much, much faster.
And, uh...
I'm just, I'm just asking you, you know?
Oh, yeah.
Her hand looks very young.
It's so smooth.
But isn't that a great shot there?
They're holding hands like you would almost across a wedding aisle or altar, so to speak.
Over top of his collage.
What do you think of that symbolism there?
It's beautiful.
I love it.
It is.
I love everything about that scene.
I love it.
So James Caan is outstanding.
This is one of the best monologues in cinema history, if you ask me.
I think it's near perfect.
It's near perfect.
In addition to that, though, I love that Jessie...
I love that she is...
She starts out kind of like explaining, you know, like, listen, I'm just really not looking
for anything right now.
I am enjoying my life.
I feel content in what I have.
And he convinces her because he's talking about the togetherness.
And that, I think, is the thing that really ultimately gets her excited about things.
She's kind of coming up with every single excuse.
And it's beautiful to think that the way to influence a woman into wanting to be with
you is not necessarily by being the most perfect human, because he certainly was not the most
perfect human, but rather because he wanted to build something with her.
I think that that's very special and cute.
It's a beautiful scene.
It's a beautiful scene.
Any you suitors out there that want to woo Kaylee, this is how you do it.
This is how you do it.
Don't kidnap me first.
Oh, yeah, that's probably not recommended.
Now, we're wrapping up here, but there's one.
I just wanted to showcase a little bit of the when Leo at the end double crosses James.
Before we move on to that, can we talk about another character that I loved?
Can I miss somebody?
That we haven't talked about yet?
Sort of.
My other favorite character was the city of Chicago.
Michael Mann does such an amazing job of showcasing locations, and he films from such interesting
locations.
And this movie is no exception to that whatsoever.
The city becomes a character for me.
Almost everything is wet and shiny and metallic.
And it feels like everything is reflective.
All the streets are covered in...
It's always wet outside.
Every single street is wet at all times.
And so you can see all of the lights of the city reflecting off of everything.
And I think that that is so cool.
And it felt almost like the city of Chicago was a character to me because of that.
I needed to exist within that city in order to be able to feel the lives of these characters.
And it was beautiful.
And I love it.
Thank you.
No, thank you for bringing that up.
Very good.
I miss that stuff sometimes.
So thank you.
This is why I don't like to do podcasts on my own.
I feel like I just...
I don't bring enough to the discussion to feel like I just miss things.
You know, I just...
It's hard.
I need to have...
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great point.
And you spoke of the wetness of the city.
Yes.
They actually...
I forget what the gallons was, but that was part of their budget.
They had this 40,000-gallon tank of truck that followed them around.
They sprayed everything down.
It was done intentionally.
And the cars also.
So you'll see the street will be shiny.
And then you'll see the reflections on the car hoods.
And everything just has that.
It almost feels like it goes along with the soundtrack also because it's kind of that metallic sort of feeling.
Those synth kind of vibes.
It's very unique.
It almost had the grittiness of the 1970s movies where they're set in Times Square.
Well, this was 1981 filmed in the 80s.
So it's just right at the start of the 80s.
Yes, at the cost.
Yeah.
I'm sure you've had the same experience.
What I love about these early films like 1980, 81 or whatever it is, or 70s, of course, is we get an actual visual representation of what it...
There's no other than them spraying down to make it look wet.
This is Chicago.
You know?
Yes.
That's what I love about it.
We're actually getting the time capsules of what the cities, American cities used to look like back in the day.
Because they don't look like that anymore.
So for better or for worse, we get those cars and the clothes.
Every single car.
It's huge.
Every single car in the late 70s.
They were all rectangles.
Every single one of them.
And they're huge.
I'll tell you this.
Again, I'm old.
My family car growing up for years.
I think it was like 16 years.
My dad bought new at the time, a 1979 Buick LeSabre.
Two-door, six-seater.
So three in the front, three in the back, row seats.
79 Buick LeSabre, V6 engine.
It has some torque on it.
It really did have some kick to it.
At the age of 16, I did my driver's license test with that car.
I did my driver's license test on a 79 Buick LeSabre.
I'm telling you.
A big boat of a car.
And I passed.
That's funny.
I drive like a go-kart now compared to that piece of car back then.
Two last things I want to show.
I want to show both Leo played by Robert Prosky.
Of course, James Kahn.
When he gets double-crossed.
I think we'll get a good representation here of the gangster part of it.
I wanted to show our audience a little bit.
The gangster of Frank played by James Kahn.
So he's done the big heist for Leo.
He already told him, I'm going to do the one for you.
Then I'm out.
And so it's short.
He was supposed to get $830,000 cash.
He's been given 40 grand.
Well, you're light.
$830,000 supposed to be here.
And I count what?
$70,000, $80,000, $90,000.
That's because I put you into the Jacksonville, the Fort Worth, and the Davenport Shopping Centers with the rest.
I take care of my people.
You can ask these guys.
Papers are at your house.
It's set up as a limited partnership.
A general partner is a subchapter S corporation.
You've got equity with me in that.
I'll count me out.
It's like, is that nice to me?
You're partners with me in all the other little mom-pa shops throughout a mall or whatever.
Isn't that great?
Aren't you happy that you're part of this?
Like sucking them right into this, like I own you.
Oh, absolutely.
This is such a power play of a scene.
James Caan does such a great job acting.
And I think it is exactly how Frank's character would react to this.
And what I love when I watch something like this is I wish I had balls.
I watch this character.
I know it's acting.
I know it's dialogue.
But I see the character of Frank, the way he responds to like, I'm not going to be bullied by you.
And I love that.
Oh, I just want to channel that sometimes in my life.
I would be like, okay, thank you.
It was cool.
All right.
I can't wait.
I can't wait to read the papers at my house.
But I love he just, he has a scene coming up where he's like, this is who, did you see somebody else who walks in here?
I just love the way he delivers that.
It's just so good.
I thought we had this good thing.
Plus, I got a major score in Palm Beach for you in six weeks.
Talking to me or somebody else walking in this room?
What's that supposed to mean?
It means you are dreaming.
This is payday.
It is over.
You know, when you have trouble with the cops, you pay them off like everybody else because that's the way things are done.
But not you.
No.
They don't run me and you don't run me.
I give you houses.
I give you a car.
You're a family.
I thought you'd come around.
What the hell is this?
What?
Where is gratitude?
Where is my end?
You can't see day for night.
I can see my money is still in your pocket, which is from the yield of my labor.
What gratitude?
I love that.
What I see is you've got my money.
The yield for my labor.
What a great line that is.
And he says, what gratitude?
You should be thanking me.
You're the one who's pocketed all my money for the work.
What gratitude?
Oh, it's so freaking good.
Guys, you have to see this film.
Yeah.
Okay.
We talked about the music throughout the whole movie.
And do you want to talk about the ends shootout sequence?
So the film ends with the classic shootout.
And what I loved about this shootout besides it's just a great shootout.
You know, Frank gets his revenge.
It's a great little moment.
Some of the critics actually criticize it.
Like, oh, it's too Hollywood.
No, I thought, no, I loved it.
I love seeing Frank take care of these people.
You just want to see them get blown to bits.
Right?
Yeah.
But the soundtrack at the end, I was like, we have the kick-ass guitar soul coming in.
And literally, Frank walking off into the sunset.
What are your thoughts on that end sequence?
I love that there is a very stark contrast between the music in the beginning of the movie
and then the music at the end of the film.
The music changes after Frank decides to say fuck it to everything.
He gets to a point where he's like, I will not be controlled by anybody.
Therefore, I am taking control of my life again.
There are explosions.
There are crazy times.
He is back in control in the most chaotic way that he possibly could be.
And at that time, the soundtrack changes from this electronic synthy stuff to this much more playful, jazzy, bluesy.
It's still rocky.
But, you know, it changes a lot.
And boy, oh, boy, was that cool for me.
I was like, oh, it's different now.
Frank is a different man right now.
It reminded me of a Western shootout at the end.
Like an OK Corral shootout.
Yeah.
I'm going to play a little bit of that right now.
I'm going to get to the part where he's laid out all the bad guys.
And he's been shot.
We're like, is he OK?
But he's put on a flak jacket or a bulletproof vest.
So the scene is him ripping off the jacket to walk off into the sunset.
So I'm just going to get to that part and just have him walk off.
So right here, he's getting up.
We as the audience is like, how did he survive this?
So he rips off his jacket.
And the crescendo of the music kicks in as he rips off the bulletproof vest.
And that guitar keeps going.
And then the title card.
I just love it.
Right here.
Look at that.
Yeah.
And that guitar motif just keeps going with the credit roll.
It's just, oh, it's just so good.
And look at that.
Michael Mann Company slash Calm Productions.
Did you catch that?
James Calm.
I did not.
Yeah.
You know who else produced this movie?
We forgot to mention that.
Jerry Bruckheimer.
Oh, yes.
That is right.
It's the only time I Googled it to say, did they work together again?
This is the only time Michael Mann and Jerry collaborated.
And the theory is they just have different aesthetics.
They just don't meet very different aesthetics.
Yeah.
Wow.
What a journey.
I just love that.
And that ending is so rock and roll.
So Western.
So Hollywood, which I just love.
He got the, the anti-hero, the main dude that you're rooting for.
Even though he's a bad guy.
He breaks the law, so to speak.
But it doesn't mean you're rooting for him.
He takes out the other people and he literally walks off into the proverbial sunset, like a Western.
And then the guitar keeps going.
It's just something David Gilmore's playing.
I don't know.
It's a fantastic.
You're totally right.
That's episode one of the Michael Mann project.
Thank you so much for coming on.
You really did kick it off the best.
You've set a high standard, by the way.
I am so happy that you decided to talk about Michael Mann.
After I saw Thief the first time, all I wanted to do was talk about this movie.
Oh, nice.
I can't do the timing.
I couldn't figure out a way to do it.
I want to talk about this movie on my channel, but I just don't know how to.
So when you said Michael Mann and I had the opportunity to scoop up Thief, I knew that this was finally my chance to talk about this one.
That's weird.
Thank you.
Well, you're welcome.
It's kind of uncanny that it worked out that way, really.
It's perfect.
What are the odds that you just got that DVD and you just watched it?
Because I gave you first choice and you chose the first film.
Like, oh, okay.
You're kicking it off.
So, wow.
This was absolutely fantastic, Kaylee.
Again, let their viewers and listeners know where they can find you.
Yes, absolutely.
You can find me on YouTube at either Once Over with Kaylee, which is C-A-Y-L-E-Y for movie reviews, or also on YouTube at The Murder Game Podcast for The Murder Game Podcast.
Murder Game Podcast is also hopefully soon on all of your streaming platforms, but definitely right now on Spotify.
And, yeah, those are the things.
Oh, and if you feel like doing very exciting things and being in Vegas on May 9th through the 11th, you can also see me live at Hackamania.
You can use promo code Kaylee, C-A-Y-L-E-Y for 10% off of your tickets.
It is going to be super fun.
I will be live on stage with Who Are These Podcasts, as well as Dr. Steve from Weird Medicine in his very last ever episode, which I'm very sad to hear, but very excited that I get to participate.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I wish I could go.
And Dabble House, of course.
DabbleHouse.live.
We will be doing season two of the tapes there with Who Are These Podcasts and the Shuley Network.
So that will also be very fun.
Yeah, if anyone's listening that's like, what in the world are you talking about?
Who are these podcasts?
That's fine.
Who are these podcasts?
Just Google Who Are These Podcasts.
The lore is deep.
The lore is thick.
But basically, long story short, the host, Carl, is the main host.
And he basically finds podcasts and other such individuals who claim to be great at their job at social media and kind of roast them in a critical and fun way.
And I stumbled on Kaylee being a big part of that show.
It's a fantastic podcast.
It's made me kind of be a little bit heightened in my awareness.
Like, oh, I don't want to be a subject of his show.
So I want to be at least boring enough that if he were to even listen to my show, that's something to drop from there or anything.
So anyways, it's a fantastic show.
Check it out.
Who are these podcasts?
And you'll see Kaylee there as well.
We'll see you next time.
We'll see you next time.