The Best Thief in the World

stars Michael Silverman

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The Best Thief in the World





By Kirk Honeycutt
Showtime Independent Films

PARK CITY -- Jacob Kornbluth's "The Best Thief in the World" belongs in the childhood-in-peril genre, where family tensions or adult problems threaten to rob a youngster of his childhood. The adolescent here is 11-year-old Izzy (quietly effective newcomer Michael Brandon Silverman), who feels the world closing in on him when his dad (David Warshofsky) suffers a paralyzing stroke and his English-teacher mom (Mary-Louise Parker) is overwhelmed by insurance problems and a lousy paycheck while struggling to raise three children in a cramped New York tenement.

Almost all of Izzy's escapes self-destructive. Sometimes he stands on the small ledge bordering the roof of their building as if daring his body to fall off. Other times, he breaks into apartments through open windows to wreck havoc, scrawl obscenities and steal things.

Once these unfortunate circumstances become established, however, it is writer-director Kornbluth who seems paralyzed. The narrative stalls in this Sundance Competition film as the break-ins and family turmoil keep repeating themselves. An audience clearly understands that the mom, despite being a schoolteacher, lacks the social skills to cope with a misbehaving son. And the son keeps pushing the envelope without ever coming to terms with circumstances that he is bright enough to realize are beyond his parents' control.

One interesting sidebar is Izzy's involvement with neighborhood kids, most of whom are black. It is rare when a white kid in a movie feels alienated because of color. Kornbluth creates a kind of Greek chorus in which two very young black kids rap obscene lyrics while clowning for the camera, a sound and image the director returns to repeatedly to underscore how black hip-hop culture dominates the younger generation.

Budget constraints limit the film's locations, but Kornbluth makes the resulting claustrophobia work for the film. Ben Kutchins' DV cinematography is resourceful, but colors in interior scenes often appear washed-out.

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Wow, I love festival time!  This is another great thread!   

Thanks Zab and josephk, and cal for all of the additional info.  Now I have several new ones to search out in the future. 

Love,
Sir J

'Cold Light' sounds wonderful, josephk!  Thanks for posting about that one!   

Thanks for giving an honest opinion about 'The Best Thief in the World', too.  I'm sorry that it wasn't so good, and I'm glad to know that it isn't one to pay for a dvd of.  Not glad that it's that bad, but glad to save the money.  :0

I'm looking forward to your thoughts about 'Edelweiss Pirates' and 'Sugar Orange', too!

Love,
Sir J

Edelweiss Pirates

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If you look closely at that picture, you will see that the actors all seem to be in their very late teens/early twenties. Those guys are the pirates of the title, a group of Gernan teenagers who fought in resistance agains the nazis during the war.

The director and one of the contributors to the film (who was a real Edelweiss Pirate) gave an overlong introduction to the film, trying way to hard to convince us that it was an "important" picture before we had even seen it. I really wish that hadn't. The film tells a story that no doubt needed to be told, but I really hate to be told how I'm supposed to react to a movie, as if the subject matter itself was enough to make it a success.

The movie was not bad. Although it suffered a little bit from its low budget production values and poor ADR work (dialogue re-recorded in post production), it had some solid characters and told the story nicely. I was never bored and the actors did a decent job.

I have seen and mentioned recently The Battle of Algiers, which this movie is very similar to in terms of theme, structure and style. I could probably write a long and detailed analysis of the two films and try to explain why Battle of Algiers is a masterpiece and Edelweiss Pirates is merely a nice effort. But I won't bore you with that.

There is one younger character who has a significan role. The lead character in the film, one of the Edelweiss Pirates, has a younger brother, probably about 15, who is at first a member of the Hitler Youth but eventually becomes part of the Edelweiss Pirates. There is also a little boy who has a much smaller role.

Although the film is interesting to some extent, I can't really give it a full recommendation, especially in terms of the main interest of this website. It's a borderline case for inclusion in our database. I would be inclined not to create a profile for it, because the actors are too old.

Sugar Orange

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This is another movie that deals with characters as adults facing a crisis, with flashbacks to significant events in their childhood. Unlike Cold Light, which was more or less evenly divided between the past and present timelines, Sugar Orange spends a lot more time on the adult characters, with only brief and sometimes enigmatic glimpses into the past. And that really is a pity.

The two actors who play "Sugar" and "Orange" are very appealing and the characters they play are fascinating. They are very close friends who have an erotically charged relationship, although we never actually see any explicit "consumation" (if I may be permitted such a term) of their desire.

Unfortunately, we don't get enough of their story to really appreciate it. I was constantly craving for more insight into their relationship and exactly what happened when they were young. Instead, we mostly see one of the two former friends as an adult, obsessing over his lost friendship while quarrelling with his girlfriend and refusing to admit (to himself as much as anyone else) that he longs to be with his friend again.

A frustrating experience, but with that warning in place, I would still recommend watching the film if you have a place, if only to see the two boys on screen and the beautiful, though brief, glimpses we get into their relationship.

I also saw a short film, Little Terrorist, about a Hindu kid who accidentally crosses the Pakistani/Indian border and has to survive a day with a day with a Muslim family before returning to his side of the border. I don't have much to say about this one. Way too cute for my taste, full of patronizingly simplistic great sentiments about how we are all alike in spite of cultural differences. Very noble, but too easy.

Next on my schedule are a couple of movies I won't be  reviewing here, as they don't feature any boy actors. My next films reviewed here will be Viper in the Fist and The Crying Wind, both of which I will see on Thursday.

Also, Zabladowski was at the two screenings with me yesterday. He will probably post his comments when he gets back home after the festival. He is crazier than I am, so he's cramming about 30 movies into his schedule, almost all of which feature boy actors. I look forward to his review of the festival as much as I'm sure you all do.

hmm. they don't serve popcorn at film festivals.

Thanks Joseph and Zab.  I wish I could see all of them.  I'd love to see 'Sugar Orange'.  'Edelweiss Pirates' sounds similar in subject and theme to 'Swing Kids' which also had older boys and young men, in this case expressing their defiance of Nazism by listening to banned US band music.

Joseph...  I assume there is sufficient on topic content in 'Sugar Orange' to warrant a BA profile?

Joseph,

It sounds like you've been having a good time.

I agree about Jules Sitruk, he's a fine young actor. Do try to get a copy of the recent version of 'Sans Famille' in which he plays the central character.