Street Thief

Sometimes it feels genuinely like a documentary about a thief, and sometimes it feels like filmmakers other than the characters are fashioning a fictional thriller. But the realism is palpable and it follows to quite a provocative conclusion.

Were this an actual documentary, it'd be intriguing. Yet the elements that make it stand out - the mercurial subject, his confrontational relationship with the filmmakers, the literal annihilation of his character - while clever from a structural standpoint, and realistically played, float into dramatic cliche without an anchor in reality. It's a problem compounded by Bader's insistence on playing things straight and serious, though I suppose the Cinemark job is meant to be a wink.

A fascinating take on the increasingly popular formula that can be traced to Man Bites Dog (1992). With Street Thief, the faux-documentarians follow a prolific burglar as he sets up scores and subsequently takes them down. The film is ultimately open-ended in a good way, and is shot in such a way that some folks have misunderstood fiction for fact. Not quite as good as Man Bites Dog, but it's one of the few films of this type that even come close.

Man Bites Dog is incredible. This is very lackluster, derivative, and predictable.