A Thief of Time

I hope Robert Redford continues to make more films like this. Hillerman's books are wonderful, and as a young child raised in the Southwest his stories hit home! Adam Beach is a highly under rated and under used actor. Wake up Hollywood, not everyone thinks that your Mel Gibson's are cool! Many movie goer's today want to see films that make you think. I have seen all of the Redford/Hillerman series. They are thoughtful, scenic and have great plots. I'm hoping that if enough people write to Robert Redford he may decide to make a few more! Thank you Adam Beach and Tony Hillerman for great entertainment! If anyone get's a chance to read Tony Hillerman's latest book do so! It's great. I also recommend traveling through Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Stop at every view site and feel the setting of Hillerman's books. Amazing experience.

I can understand a lot of the bad reviews since they seemed a bit random in what they pulled from the book and what they left out. So if you have not read the book you see a lot of bits that do not seem to be needed / part of the plot. And some of the altered dialog will make you cringe. So will the pronunciations if you are used to Tony Hillerman reading his books. Then there is Emma who is not supposed to be in this story because she died before it starts and screws up the plots of future films. But if you have read the book you will probably enjoy seeing the book on the screen. Alex Rice is just as stunning as she was her Wonderfalls appearance. If Adam Beach and Wes Studi had the same sort of screen presence you probably would not notice the missing bits as much. Dawn Lewis, while gorgeous in this, seems as totally out of place as an anthropologist as Rebecca Holden did as a mechanic in Knight Rider. Both Rice and Lewis tend to dominate the scenes they are in which can kind of lead the viewer, that does not know the book, off track since a lot of their character's linkage to the plots were cut from the film.

Joe (Wes) & Jim (Adam) re-acquaint us with the beauty, isolation (psychological as well as physical) and utter terror of "murder most fowl" in the Navaho Southwest. Characterizations, settings and plot continually build .. . even if at times the personal asides leave us wanting "more" .. . with some interesting alternative choices as to "who done it?" Flashbacks (e.g. Peter Fonda . .. good to see him) provide clues but they don't go where you might think. Comic asides (e.g. the Preacher) are mild and appropriate. Where "Skinwalkers" and "Coyote Waits" start to drag .. . "Thief" engages the clutch and four-wheels you around the next corner, never quite sure what's there. Disagree with Joe Leaphorn's manic comment to Jim Chee to "slow down" for the potholes. Wrong ... there are no potholes in the plot, just tracks to follow. On to the next episode! Great photography (as always), appealing characters and more to explore!

The movie was a waste of time and a waste of great actors. I love Adam, Wes and the other actors. Tony is lying restless in his grave. I has a weird sense of continuity. The editing was mediocre. If you read Tony and saw other video presentations you would understand the continuity.

I like Wes Studi & especially Adam Beach, but whoa is this movie a load of pretentiousness. Ponderously slow. Overly cryptic to the point of obfuscation, not because the plot warrants it but because there is almost no plot. Even less in the way of characterization. This is almost like one of those creaky old Charlie Chan mysteries (the cheaper Monogram studio versions) with lots of red herrings & oddball characters (like the old ex-senator with the checkered past who is now a recluse) & loads of people getting killed over objets d'art that you wouldn't look twice at in the mall. Great scenery, though. Pretty hair on the redhead, too, although I never did figure out what she was doing in this at all. Neither could my wife. Sheesh, at least the old B-movies had the decency to be short.