Word: caan
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...right, Frank (James Caan) is good at his craft. And Thief deserves credit for presenting a hard, cool look at how the ancient art of safecracking has adapted itself to the latest advances in electronics and metallurgy. But if Frank is too smart ever to get caught in the act, the fuzz might consider busting Michael Mann's debut film for loitering with intent to talk existential philosophy at the scene of the crime...
Mann finds ways of translating these existential thoughts into the argot of the Chicago ex-con that are reasonably believable; and James Caan finds ways of saying them without choking. Indeed, at the center of the film there is a fine scene when Frank proposes to Jessie (Tuesday Weld), a coffee-shop cashier astonished to have an offer of marriage on her first date with the guy from the back booth, and to find out what he actually does for a living. Here Mann gets a subtler message across, in a scene with comedy, originality and dramatic power as played...
...first TV role, in the old Kraft Theater. Says she: "He was a terrible actor then-we laugh about it now-and totally charming." Dougherty also turned up Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman. Stalmaster's finds include Jon Voight (four lines in Hour of the Gun), James Caan (a silent reaction in Irma La Douce) and Gilda Radner (an other silent bit in The Last Detail...
...dilapidated, and the house his wife and kids inhabit (he is divorced) is, at best, humble. Life for him is a few beers with the boys after work, a Saturday-night dance at the union hall and a little amateur baseball on Sunday afternoon. As director, Caan reveals the character with a sympathy that never patronizes. As an actor, he shows him as a good-natured fellow sustained by simple loyalties. Hacklin had uncomplainingly done his time in the service, just as he now uncomplainingly does his time at the factory, sustained by an unexamined trust in family, friends...
...crook, his bride and Hacklin's children (Heather Bicknell, Andrew Fenwick) are spirited away. The Government not only refuses to tell Hacklin what has become of his children, it blocks his efforts to find them. The conspiracy is expensive and sophisticated; Hacklin is poor and simple. But Caan refuses to heighten this classic confrontation between soulless bureaucracy and the individual who has no weapons on his side. Dramatically, the underplaying of Hacklin's frustrations may be a mistake; one yearns for a scene in which Caan busts loose, gives full vent to his pain and anger. Yet there...