Taking In "Street Thief"

At first glance, "Street Thief" is an engaging and suspenseful documentary of a Chicago burglar's life of crime. Two filmmakers record the lifestyle, techniques, and jobs of a thief named Kaspar Carr, who steals from supermarkets, clubs, and other cash-rich Chicago-land businesses. The filmmakers tread a fine line between documenting a social phenomenon and being accessories to multiple felonies. Then after one robbery, Carr's life goes unpredictably and mysteriously awry.

Or does it? A good burglar prepares his jobs thoroughly, casing targets, following the flow of customers and employees, bugging phones. There is every reason to suspect a movie about a burglar would be handled the same way.

The filmmakers document Carr's biggest job ever, knocking over a lucrative movie theater. A couple days later, they drive by Carr's warehouse base of operations and find it swarming with police. Carr's Mercedes is in the driveway, doors open and blood on the driver's seat, door and window. Carr is mysteriously absent.

The filmmakers, presuming Carr has been taken into custody, phone several police stations, trying to find him. Here one gets annoyed with the filmmakers. Why alert the police to Carr's identity? Why associate Carr with the warehouse? In further attempts to find Carr, the filmmakers meet with a lawyer, and turn their footage over to the police. They talk with Carr's neighbors, and even a person suspected of possibly murdering Carr. The person is the owner of a strip club Carr hit earlier, in an atypically impromptu fashion. The viewer feels the documentarians are being novice and, worse, selfish. Won't involving the police in finding Carr doom him to jail?

Then one considers: If one makes a documentary about a thief, what does one offer for assurance? How does one document lifestyle, record crimes for posterity, and offer a perfect way out? Film is an edited narrative. The reality, perhaps, is different:

Is Kaspar Carr the thief's real name? Did the blood in the car belong to Carr? Was the strip club really a last-minute job, or part of a carefully crafted story-line?

Perhaps the thief plans the strip club job carefully; there is little chance of failure. This planning is not documented. Now there is the illusion of error, discovery, and a motive for murder. The thief plans and executes the movie theater job, uses his warehouse one last time, then cleans it of any traceable evidence. He parks his car out front, and stains it with blood. Whose? Perhaps he steals from a blood-bank. Then he goes underground.

The filmmakers innocently try to locate the thief, providing the police with a name consistent with the film. They exchange their footage for immunity, in the appearance of collaborating with the police, thus removing themselves from being accessories to crimes. They portray the thief as having disappeared, probably having been killed. The only identifier is the thief's image onscreen. There is no other hard evidence.

The thief's disappearance, and therefore his crimes, will go unsolved. Who cares about a dead street thief? The movie, however, paints a sympathetic picture of the thief. He is smart, fair if opportunistic, congenial, and ultimately likable. Anyone recognizing him on the street would not want to turn him in.

By the end of the movie, Carr is both real and fictional. At one point, Carr tells the filmmakers, "I'm two steps ahead of you." He is likely speaking to a broader audience. On further consideration, in "Street Thief," a burglar and two filmmakers create and pull off the perfect caper. Who's idea was it? For Carr's sake, I hope it is not only mine.



NOTE: The above represents our take after a first viewing, with no prior knowledge of the movie. A bit of research reveals a different story behind the film. See the first comment regarding this.