Thief (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Mar 21, 2025
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
Michael MannRelease Date(s)
1981 (March 11, 2025)Studio(s)
United Artists (The Criterion Collection – Spine #691)- Film/Program Grade: A+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B
Review
Thief (aka Violent Streets) was Michael Mann’s auspicious feature film debut in 1981, even though it wasn’t really his first film. Yet it still set the template that he’s followed throughout the rest of his career, establishing the primary thematic concerns that he’s returned to time and time again. While there a few different aspects to this, the single common thread that ties his entire filmography together (The Keep excepted) is a simple one: professionalism, in the purest Hawksian sense of the term. Regardless of the different stories, settings, and even time periods that Mann has explored, his films always revolve around individuals who are experts at whatever they do, and they take their respective jobs seriously.
As a result, while any given Michael Mann film can be enjoyed in isolation, they all work better together as a unit, with each new film being enriched by familiarity with the ones that came before it. Even a problematic effort like Blackhat is much richer when considered in context with Mann’s other films, not necessarily qualitatively, but rather thematically. In a few cases, that context is even narrower. Heat may have the broadest appeal of any Michael Mann film save perhaps for The Last of the Mohicans, but it’s still best appreciated with a clear understanding of how Thief laid the foundation for it. Yet even Thief had a foundation of its own, one that was just as important to it as any of the other sources that Mann used: his 1979 telefilm The Jericho Mile.
Mann had met former convict turned author Eddie Bunker while working on the script for Straight Time, and the two of them hit it off. After learning about Bunker’s life inside, Mann made the crucial decision to shoot The Jericho Mile on location at Folsom Prison, using real convicts not just as extras but in major speaking roles. Bunker proved helpful in securing their cooperation, and Mann ended up absorbing everything that he could about the mentality that it takes to do hard time. That formed the basis for the character of Frank in Thief, and it had downstream effects that led to later films like Heat. It also gave Mann some significant street cred, which he used while researching the rest of Thief.
The opening credits for Thief describe it as being based on The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar by Frank Hohimer, which is ironic considering that the Frank in Thief makes it perfectly clear that he doesn’t do home invasions. The reality is that The Home Invaders was just one source among many that Mann had considered while researching Thief, and after acquiring the rights to it, he was forced to cover himself legally by giving Hohimer credit even though the film isn’t actually based on his work. Mann’s true sources were high-line thieves John Santucci and W.R. Bill Brown, who didn’t just provide Mann with material for his script, but they also provided the actual tools that Frank and his crew use during the film (as well as the training on how to use them). Needless to say, Santucci and Brown didn’t mess with home invasions, either.
Thief opens with a vivid demonstration of that kind of expertise, with Frank (James Caan) and his crew breaking into a safe in order to steal some uncut diamonds. Mann made sure that Caan knew how to handle the tools of the trade, and in addition to live ammo weapon training, Caan spent time with Santucci and Brown learning how to crack safes. As a result, everything became second nature to him, and that helps to establish the fact that Frank is a professional’s professional (even the corrupt cops who constantly hound him recognize his professionalism). Caan didn’t just play Frank; he became Frank.
In that respect, the professionalism that Mann displays in Thief and elsewhere isn’t so much Hawksian as it is inspired by John Frankenheimer’s version of professionalism in films like The Train, Grand Prix, and Ronin. Frankenheimer deliberately took the time to show his actors using the tools of their respective trades in great detail, which helps establish not just their characters, but the worlds that they inhabit. That’s a lesson that Mann took to heart, and it’s been a consistent quality throughout his entire career, from James Caan to Daniel Day-Lewis to Tom Cruise, and all points in between.
Significantly, Frank tosses anything and everything that he finds inside the safe except for the uncut diamonds that he was after. He’s been successful because he always focuses on the job at hand and avoids any distractions or temptations. That’s an important lesson that he learned while he was in prison: don’t care about anything. Yet even while he was doing time, he yearned for something different, building up a literal picture of the life that he wanted to create for himself once he got out. To that end, he pursues a relationship with Jessie (Tuesday Weld), and that leads to Frank making the fateful decision to get in bed with Chicago mob boss Leo (Robert Prosky) in order to be able to put the pieces of that life together.
Frank just wants to take down a handful of major scores, but Leo has something else in mind for him, and that leads to Frank’s downfall. He’s been building his dream, but it resulted in being tied down by distractions and losing his cherished independence. After succumbing to the temptations that Leo offered, he started to care again, and lost focus on the job at hand. The only solution is to strip himself of everything and return to the nihilistic mental state that had kept him alive while he was in prison—which is exactly what Frank does, in decisive fashion.
Mann is a native Chicagoan, so he shot all of Thief in the familiar environs of his home town, and he loaded the film with familiar Chicago actors like Jim Belushi, Mike Genovese, Nathan Davis, and William Peterson, plus other strong character actors like Prosky, Tom Signorelli, and Willie Nelson. Mann also gave roles to real-life Chicago police officers Dennis Farina and Chuck Adamson, as well as real-life thieves Brown and Santucci (in a role reversal, Farina plays one of Leo’s thugs while Santucci plays the cop). Mann even flirted with using Chicago blues in the score for Thief, and while he did include a single blues performance in the film (and also threw in a cameo appearance by Willie Dixon, at least in his director’s cut), Mann ended up making the fateful decision to approach Tangerine Dream instead.
While he’s expressed doubts about whether or not he made the right choice, Tangerine Dream’s driving electronic score is such an integral part of the film that it’s impossible to imagine it working as well any other way. It provides just as much texture as do any of the locations, actors, or even the tools of the trade. In fact, it actually enhances those textures during both the opening heist and the later burn bar scene that rivals Jules Dassin’s Rififi as one of the greatest heist sequences ever put on film. The music, the tools, and the visuals fuse into a whole that’s far greater than the sum of its parts. (Although it’s worth pointing out that Craig Safan ended up composing the music that plays over Frank’s final confrontation with Leo, but the reasons why are a story for another day.)
All of that contributed to Michael Mann’s reputation as a high-tech filmmaker, and to be fair, he is as much of an expert with the tools of the filmmaking trade as any of his characters are with their own tools. Yet that reputation overlooks the fact that for Mann, technology has always been a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Technology in Mann’s films serves the characters, but the characters don’t serve the technology. And that’s what brings everything full circle. It’s still true that to fully appreciate Heat, you need to understand Thief, and to fully appreciate Thief, you need understand The Jericho Mile. Yet to fully appreciate Mann, you need to understand Frank. Thief laid the groundwork for Mann’s entire career, not because of the genre elements or any stylistic flourishes, but rather because Frank defined the kind of dedicated professionalism that would become Mann’s obsession. Everything else has flowed out of that, and understanding that fact is the key to appreciating any Michael Mann film all the way from The Jericho Mile to Ferrari (and beyond, we fervently hope, since he hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down).
Cinematographer Donald E. Thorin shot Thief on 35mm film using Panavision Panaflex Gold cameras with spherical Panavision Super Speed lenses, framed at 1.85:1 for its theatrical release. This version is based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative, cleaned up and graded for High Dynamic Range in both Dolby Vision and HDR10. (The Willie Dixon scene that was added to the director’s cut was scanned from an internegative instead.) The whole process was approved by Michael Mann. This appears to be the same scan that was done for Criterion’s 2014 Blu-ray, but there may have been some additional cleanup, and it’s definitely not the same grade.
Thief has always been a little challenging to assess in that regard, which isn’t helped by the fact that previous home video versions have been wildly inconsistent. Steely blues and greens dominate the production design and cinematography, and yet most of the original MGM home video releases had their typically brightened, high-contrast look, with pinkish/red flesh tones. Criterion’s Blu-ray grade (which was supposedly guided by the look of Mann’s 35mm answer print) corrected for that, but it arguably over-corrected. It was much, much darker—a little too dark—and everything was covered in a teal wash, flesh tones included. Better, but problematic in its own way.
This time around, all past sins are forgiven. The brightness levels all seem much more appropriate on a scene-by-scene basis, dark when they should be but never too dark when they shouldn’t. The overall contrast range has been improved, but it hasn’t been exaggerated; the use of HDR here is quite restrained. The nighttime city scenes with their wetted-down streets really pop, especially in the scenes at Frank’s car lot, and the burn bar really burns, but the rest of the film displays the kind of contrast levels that are perfectly appropriate for a 35mm film. While the blues, greens, and even the teals that are inherent to the original design of Thief are still present, they haven’t bled into the flesh tones, all of which look natural—when they do tilt into teal/green, it’s because of the lighting that Thorin used in the scene, like when Leo is towering over Frank and threatening Jessie later in the film. It’s a clear upgrade over any and all previous home video versions of Thief.
Audio is offered in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, with optional English SDH subtitles. Thief was originally released in Dolby Stereo, so it was a four-channel mix matrixed into two. Criterion is referring to this version as being 5.0 instead of 5.1, which is technically more accurate since there’s no LFE. It’s really 5.0 in a 5.1 container. Although to be even more technical about it, this was remastered from the original four-track magnetic stems, so the mono surround channel has just been split into L/R dual mono. So, it’s really 4.0 in a 5.0 container in a 5.1 container. Whew. (As an aside, it would be nice if other companies were more accurate in how they describe their soundtracks, since so many older films with “5.1” tracks aren’t remixes at all, but rather just 4.0 in a 5.1 container.)
In any event, it’s a pretty typical Dolby Stereo mix from that era, so the surround usage is limited, although there’s some much more noticeable directionality across the front soundstage. The dialogue and effects are all well-balanced, but unsurprisingly, the bulk of the sonic energy in the film is driven by Tangerine Dream’s unforgettable score (as well as Craig Safan’s contribution to the ending). That bled over into rest of the sound design, since Mann had various effects pitched up or down in order to match the key of the music—for example, the sounds of traffic in the city or the crashing waves during the beach scene. Thief may not have the kind of aggressive 5.1 or Atmos mixes that we’re used to hearing today, but it’s no less creative in its own way.
Criterion’s 4K Ultra HD release of Thief is a two-disc set that includes a Blu-ray with a 1080p copy of the film—and in both cases, it’s his director’s cut only, not the theatrical cut. That might be a deal-breaker for some people, but as someone who obsesses over Mann as much as Mann obsesses over professionalism, and frequently dislikes the revisions that he keeps making, this is one case where I’m fine with not having the theatrical cut. The changes are pretty minimal, and they’re not detrimental to the film as a whole. Still, your own mileage may vary.
There’s also a 10-page foldout booklet featuring an essay by Nick James. It’s essentially the same booklet as Criterion’s previous one, just reconfigured without most of the photographs and with modified restoration notes. The following extras are included, all of them in HD:
DISC ONE: UHD
- Audio Commentary by Michael Mann and James Caan
DISC TWO: BD
- Audio Commentary by Michael Mann and James Caan
- Michael Mann (24:18)
- James Caan (10:39)
- Tangerine Dream (15:40)
- Trailer (1:53)
The commentary with Mann and Caan was originally recorded for the 1995 Special Director’s Edition LaserDisc release of Thief, and it’s always been a personal favorite of mine, right up there with the LaserDisc commentaries for The Howling and Escape from New York. Like both of those, it works as well as it does because it features a director and an actor who were perfectly in sync with each other, and it’s filled with genuine insights into the making of Thief, the themes that it presents, and the nature of Frank’s character. While it was hard work for Caan, he appreciated the fact that he was the most prepared that he had ever been for any film in his career—and he was also the most proud of his performance in the diner scene with Tuesday Weld.
Unfortunately, while there have always been occasional gaps in this commentary track, those gaps are now much longer than they were before. There are some significant passages that are missing, including stories about John Santucci and W.R. Bill Brown. Don’t blame Criterion, because that’s probably the fault of the notoriously skittish MGM legal department. They’ve applied their censorious scissors to other older commentaries like the one from the aforementioned Howling LaserDisc, but they’ve also trimmed more recent commentaries like the one that The Hysteria Continues! did for Vinegar Syndrome’s Creature Blu-ray. Sadly, there’s nothing to be done about that, but at least there’s still plenty of good information left over in this one (unlike The Howling, where I’ll argue that MGM completely gutted it).
The rest of the extras consist of interviews that Criterion conducted back in 2013. Michael Mann was interviewed by Scott Foundas from Variety, who draws out Mann’s personal background and how that influenced the look and feel of Thief. To Foundas’ credit, he clearly understood the importance of Mann’s experiences making The Jericho Mile to the conception of Thief, and he follows that train of thought with Mann to its logical conclusion. It’s really more of a dialogue than an interview, and it’s so much the better for that.
The interviews with Caan and Johannes Schmoelling are a bit more conventional with them doing all of the talking. Caan reiterates how proud that he is of his work on the film, so his opinion hadn’t changed much nearly twenty years down the road from when he recorded the commentary with Mann. (He also still admits that he really got pretty good at cracking safes.) Tangerine Dream is represented by keyboardist Johannes Schmoelling, who was a member of the group from 1979 to 1985. He talks about their relationship with Mann and the way that the music that they created was blended with the sound effects to support the entire sound design.
There aren’t any new extras here for the simple reason that the Blu-ray is the exact same disc as the one in Criterion’s previous release. Even the cover art is identical. The only difference is the 4K disc and the new grade that it offers. Arrow’s Region B Blu-ray in the U.K. also offered a different interview with Caan; an episode of the French television series Ciné Regards that was devoted to Caan; a visual essay by F.X. Feeney; and the 2001 episode of The Directors devoted to Mann. The Region B Blu-ray from OFDb Filmworks in Germany added a German-language commentary by Prof. Dr. Marcus Stiglegger. If you have any of those, you’ll probably want to hold onto them for the exclusive extras, but the improvements in Criterion’s 4K version blows all of them out of the water from an A/V perspective. If you’re a Michael Mann fan, you need this, and if you aren’t, then this is the best place to start on your voyage to becoming one. The journey of a thousand steps begins with Frank.
-Stephen Bjork
(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).