Shot by Ken Seng in cinéma vérité style, directed by and starring Malik Bader, and produced by his brother Sam Bader, Street Thief is so convincingly faked it's easy to mistake for a documentary, and that's part of the appeal. The film follows "Kaspar Carr" as he cases and breaks into Hispanic grocery stores, nightclubs, and a movie theater; some of the crimes are reenactments based on the exploits of criminals the Bader brothers knew growing up on Chicago's South Side. Kaspar is despicably charismatic; he bullies the documentary crew, is disdainful of the working stiff, and is brilliant and skillful in all the wrong ways. His arrogant motor-mouth monologues delivered while showing off his tools and disguises or scoping out joints are enormously entertaining. His scorn is his appeal, the audience his patsy, willing to be duped for the vicarious thrill of taking part in his crimes. Carr fits right into the love-to-hate-me tradition of cinematic criminals stretching from Scarface to GoodFellas' Henry Hill and raises plenty of issues about the nature of their allure. It also raises issues about filmmaker responsibility and how far someone may be willing to go to entertain his or her audience. In recreating actual crimes, the Bader brothers apparently committed some violations themselves, and Sam was arrested for an unrelated delivery truck hijacking in April of 2006. Whatever the truth, it seems the Baders are as skilled in the art of self-promotion as Carr.