“The verisimilitude in his writing, the truth, his research,” says Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced Mann’s directorial debut. Mann treats each of his films like an intricate architectural project every detail, no matter how tiny, is vital. Released 40 years ago this week, Thief features a protagonist who is a reflection of his meticulous creator. It’s almost like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.” “There was just this unbelievable character,” he says. It was the type of part Caan had been waiting for. He’s a quintessential example of a specific brand of eccentric tough guy who’s appeared often in Mann’s work: obsessive, driven, and principled to a fault. Mann’s script centered on an ex-convict named Frank who makes a living stealing only diamonds or cash. “He wanted me to read this thing,” Caan says. “I was sought after,” Mann says, “and my intent was to use that to extort-which is a modality that certainly comes from inner-city Chicago-a directing gig.” So, he asked Caan to talk and the actor obliged.

His small-screen work had given him cachet that he hoped would help him find big-screen work. It was Michael Mann.Īt the time, the 36-year-old Mann was working in television, writing for the buddy cop series Starsky & Hutch and helming the TV movie The Jericho Mile. He was sitting in a small wooden chair and holding a manila envelope.

Then one day, while shooting a film adaptation of Neil Simon’s Chapter Two, Caan walked back to his trailer and saw that he had a visitor. “And you look and you listen, and what little idealism you have left slowly dwindles.” “Everybody wants to do Rocky 9 and Airport 96 and Jaws 7,” he once said. Nearly a decade after his Academy Award–nominated performance as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, Caan was ready to go back to playing, well, complicated men. “And along with that doesn’t come some of the great character work that I really like to do.” “I don’t want to get esoteric and get into all this actor bullshit, but I got put into that nice, wonderful category of being a leading man,” he says. In the late 1970s, James Caan was a movie star who’d grown tired of the kinds of roles offered to movie stars.

Rocket motors from the movie thief 1981