The Good Thief

I really want thank you all for the great conversation you've all added here on IMDb regarding my film. That's really what this is all about. The sharing of ideas and opinions, etc. Kudos to you all. When I had set out to make this film I made it with the hopes that there would be one thing each person watching it could take away from it. Good, bad, or indifferent. To me that's art. That's what film-making is all about. It's not about pleasing everyone at all times. It's about experimenting and learning. That's what makes directing so exciting. That said, I will take what I learned on this film and add it to my next one. Progressing each time. Hoping you all will stick around for the ride. All the best. - RT

I worked on "The Good Thief" as a Production Assistant, which meant I got to yell out, "Rolling! Quiet please!" in some of Philadelphia's finest neighborhoods. I saw the movie last week, and let me tell you, standing outside a crack house at 2am was worth it. RT Herwig's debut was made for under $700,000, and throughout the course of the movie, it becomes obvious that they got the most out of every penny. The film looks nicer than most movies made for millions and millions of dollars. "The Good Thief" is a story about an honorable man returning home from prison and trying to reconcile his past with his future. Namely, he wants to provide for his daughter who doesn't know he's alive but doesn't want to return to crime to do so. Rather than tell a straightforward story, Herwig lays on some trippy spirituality to mix things up. There's a lot of smoke in this movie, (hence my subject line) and that's just one of the visual metaphors Herwig uses to demonstrate the protagonist's mental state. More often than not, this doesn't look like a cheaply-made movie. The film is beautifully shot, and you can tell a lot of care went into making each frame look wonderful. Some of the acting falls flat, and some scenes drag on, but there is enough strength in other scenes to redeem the film. Herwig throws in some neat clues here and there, and the soundtrack is very cool. It will be nice to see what Herwig can do with a larger budget. He's obviously a very talented filmmaker with a bright future ahead of him. People spend a lot of money on making really crappy movies. "The Good Thief" didn't cost a lot of money, and is not a really crappy movie. It's actually pretty good, and well worth checking out. Just watch out for all the smoke.

My Wife and I recently attended a screening of "The Good Thief" in Doylestown, PA, and unlike other features by local directors that we'd seen, we both felt that this was a first rate effort. Director RT Herwig's first feature effort has the style of film noir of the 30's & 40's, a script that gives the audience plenty to think about after they leave the theater, & a strong cast that delivers the goods. Christopher Kadish, looking very much like a round faced DeNiro, gives a most believable performance as Chris, an ex con recently released from prison and trying very hard to straighten out his life. The entire cast makes it look like this is a slice of life that we're looking in on and not a performance, a feeling enhanced by long loving shots and not any quick & jarring cuts. A must see.

i belong to a film club in san jose, california and was fortunate enough to see this film at our october, 2002 event. the event was even better because rt [the director] was there in the flesh for q&a.

this is a thinking persons film. lots of metaphor and use of older movie techniques. while the film may be flawed and overly ambitious, it really is the story of one man's journey towards absolution.

the director made this film for himself. if you like it, ok; if you don't that's ok too. what's important is that rt really did think this fillm through....but you might not know that if you had not heard him discuss the film. each scene was deliberately set up, actors kept from one another until their scenes, etc.

this is an excellent start for a first time feature director. i look forward to his future features. i agree with rt that those that don't like this film now will one day look at his work as a body and then say "now i get it" or more importantly "now i get him".

i like this film hence the rating. it probably won't ever get a release...never was rt's intention...but will play film festivals. go see it with an open mind and heart: think about sin, good v. bad, redemption and absolution. nothing is concrete in a metaphor....

Christopher Doogan is dressed nicely, walking along a street in a marginal neighborhood at night in the fog. He passes a street preacher, and later goes into a church. Later he goes into a somewhat sleazy-looking bar where people are surprised to see him. Like the fog we see outside, we're not at all clear on what is going on in the early minutes of this film.

I saw this at the Camera Cinema Club in Silicon Valley, CA on 10/20/2002. The director, R.T. Herwig, was there to answer questions afterwards. He said that the film is an "emotional tone poem," and that making an understandable narrative was not his main focus. That's good, because the film was often fuzzy.

But despite the fact that the story is apparently not very important, you might still want to know about it. If you don't, you should *skip* the rest of this paragraph... Christopher has just been released from prison were he has been for a few years for his part in a robbery of some sort. Christopher loyally took the fall for a man named Banion and the rest of his gang, but Christopher isn't sure he wants back into a life of crime. He goes home, where his parents and grandmother live, and is welcomed except for by his retired-firefighter father. And later in the film, we learn, not surprisingly, that Banion has plans to use Christopher for at least one more job.

The film was shot on Super 16 and blown up to 35mm. Despite some people saying that it looked good, I thought it looked very grainy, especially in darker scenes like the church. It was shot in 14 days, and the finished film feels like it drags on nearly that long - it really needs some significant trimming. The performances by the unknown cast vary from marginal to good, but even the better actors are sometimes given very stilted lines to read. And the lead actor is way too short to plausibly be the child of the actors who play his parents.

On the positive side, the direction is more interesting than most mainstream films, probably because the director sincerely seems not to care if this film makes money or not. The camera angles are tilted more often than they are straight, which effectively conveys the subjectivity of the main character's mind, while possibly also keeping the audience more detached (one audience member's reaction). The film is made up almost entirely of long shots, both in terms of camera distance and the time between edits (one memorable shot is of a dinner, shot through the spindles of a railing, with two spindles visually keeping the three diners separate, and all done in one very long take).

I would probably give the film a slightly lower rating than I have, except that the director was very entertaining, despite his obvious discomfort at being in front of a crowd. He says he was depressed when he made the film, and it shows. He repeatedly brought up "Charlie's Angels" and Jackie Chan films, more or less saying that since his film is more original than those (which were popular), it must be good. He sited John Ford as his biggest influence, and "The Informer" as the film closest to what he was trying to make here.

I would recommend this film if the director will be there to answer questions afterwards, such as at a film festival. Frankly, I would be surprised if this film ever sees a normal distribution, but if it is (and the director is back home in the Philadelphia area), I would marginally recommend *against* seeing it.