James Caan wears an unidentified watch

James Caan plays Frank in Thief, a professional safecracker in Chicago who wants to retire from crime and build a normal life with a wife, a house, and adopted kids. Michael Mann directed this 1981 film, his feature debut, which established the visual style and thematic concerns he would return to throughout his career. Frank is methodical and self-contained, a man who spent eleven years in prison and taught himself not to need anyone. When he partners with a crime boss to pull off a big diamond heist, he discovers that the straight life he wants requires getting deeper into the criminal world than he planned. Caan plays Frank as someone who has everything figured out except how to stop being what he is, and Mann photographs nighttime Chicago like a neon-lit trap closing around him. His watch has not been identified.