Highway Robbery

ON A SATURDAY night in the suburbs, Mickey and Ray dine at an elegant restaurant to celebrate their wedding anniversary. "Six years," the parking valet says in disbelief, "no one stays married that long." But it was not fair in Yuppiedom. While they sup, a young man in a dark van pulls up in front of their house on San Francisco Bay, deftly enters, and makes off with a horde of booty which includes a mysterious padlocked box.

As it happens, Mickey (Barbara Williams) and Ray (John Getz) are experiencing marital blues and the stolen box contains journals of Mickey's unfulfilled fantasies. Worse still, the urban intruder is a studly thief named Scotty (Steven Bauer) who has expensive taste and big aspirations; he's not content to simply rob their home, he wants to steal Mickey too. Scotty reads her journals, falls in love with her picture and then moves in for the kill.

In Thiefs of Hearts, writer and director Douglas Day Stewart presents an unnerving and alluring possibility for a thriller, the simultaneous unveiling of deep secrets and the realization of fantasy. Scotty, Ray and Mickey personify Freud's conception of the mind. Scotty is the Id; one's primal nature, impulsive and sensual. Ray represents the superego, law-abiding, secure and conventional. Mickey's the ego in the middle, trying to achieve a balance between the two. "Thief of Hearts" fails to achieve a thoroughly disturbing effect because Mickey suffers from a healthy psyche. She is tempted, she even yields slightly to Scotty, the man who offers to bring her fantasies to fruition. But Mickey never takes the plunge. "I don't really know you," she tells Scotty and returns quickly to her familiar world: sedate suburbia and reliable Ray.

Which is disappointing, because Mickey is clearly a frustrated wife. Her husband, a self-absorbed writer, seems to know little about her or her blossoming career as an interior decorator. By contrast, Scotty knows her most personal secrets, including her political affiliation and her favorite ice cream flavor. Thief of Hearts works best when Bauer and Williams are beginning their brief romance. There's a strong sense of tension and energy as Scotty begins to create her fantasies and Mickey begins to concede. The few fantasy sequences comprise the film's most imaginative and evocative momements. Mickey, who writes her journal entries in the tub, loves water and one her fantasies is to be seduced on a boat under "the scorching sun." Scotty responds by inviting her to lunch on his new sailboat. As the waves lap the sides of the boat, Scotty slowly rubs lotion on his chest. Mickey, needless to say, is speechless.

Unfortunately, this sensual tension is disrupted by the film's flaws. Many of the scenes featuring Scotty alongside sailboats or sports cars, for example, resemble nothing as much as ads for Calvin Klein menswear. And while the plot quickly ensnares the audience, the pace and soundtrack soon become monotonous. We hear the same music when Scotty robs houses as when he trails Mickey in the supermarket.

As Scotty, Bauer has an oversized Jaw and a confident swagger. He provides a sharp contrast to Mickey's rather nerdy, sheepish husband. Bauer is at his best when he plays t he symbolic usurper: a furtive and shadowy man who captivates the lonely Mickey. But when he tries to demonstrate any-complexity, he talks out of the side of his mouth and mumbles his lines Barbara Williams' confusion is more appropriate, as she struggles with shallow lines and her growing interest in the interloper.

When Ray starts getting suspicious of Mickey's long afternoons at the office, he and his chubby editor play detective as they trail Scotty to a warehouse. Their efforts are almost comical and the middle-aged Starsky and Hutch do nothing more than detract from an already faltering thriller.

The slapstick comedy, coming as it does in the midst of an attempt at sexual suspense, deals the death blows to an already faltering film. When all is done, the only thing that Thief of Hearts steals perfectly is two hours of your time.