The Outsiders(Francis Ford Coppola, 1983)
Not much to get excited about here. Bad bad acting by almost everybody. It's too bad Swayze didn't have a bigger role, because he was the only one I could take seriously. Matt Dillon was atrocious. Ralph Macchio and whoever played Ponyboy were awful too. The bad acting combined with lines like "
Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold" just make you role your eyes. This film gave me no reason to overlook the cheesiness. The
Romeo & Juliet-like lover story, the rich kids versus the poor kids dilemma...
. I was not into it at all.
Seriously? I'll give the story credit though, not everything is black and white. Yes the Greasers are hooligans, and jerks, but they are also products of their environment. As are the Socs. It's complicated I guess. The moral of the story is life's not fair, but stay positive anyways. Do what's right, because it's right.
The Thief
(Michael Mann, 1987)
This film feels exactly like what it is. Mann's first film. It's Heat ver. 1.0. Similar in every way, and worse in every way. There's no reason to watch it unless you just
have too see every Michael Mann film. It's not bad... it's actually quite decent and sometimes good. The thing is, watching it is like using Windows 95 again. Why would you?
What’s not so arresting is the bombastic, grating ‘80s synth score. Most of the electronic music of the ‘80s just couldn’t compete with a proper musical score. It’s the same here. It also doesn’t help that the sound mixer often brings it up to be the key sound element in the film. The odd, otherworldly tones don’t fit in with what is a fairly typical crime drama.
Yes. AWFUL!
In short, skip The Thief, watch Heat, and know that Michael Mann came a long way as a director in the 14 years between the two films.
Verdict: But wait, you can't skip The Thief because it's moving on to Round 2 where it will (and should) lose to Rainman.