That Straight Time seems so Michael Mann is due to it being based on Eddie Bunker's book No Beast So Fierce.

Bunker (Mr Blue in Reservoir Dogs) was a gifted criminal, the youngest person ever sent to San Quentin (a kind of Malcolm in the Middle of crime) and made the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List.

He later went straight and became a criminal consultant to Hollywood directors striving for realism. Bunker met Mann when they both worked on a version of Straight Time, and seems to have taught Mann all he knows about the West Coast underworld.

In 1979 Mann didn't command his current respect and so missed out on the chance to lens Straight Time. The film was a pet project of Dustin Hoffman's and he originally intended to helm the movie, but handed directing duties over to Grosbard a few days into filming.

Grosbard brought to the film a cool objectivity that abstains from judging the ne'er do wells running wild on the screen, plus a quiet yet powerful condemnation of a parole system that refuses to admit these men can ever truly change.

Hoffman, all lank haired and handle-bar moustachioed, is Max, a convicted bank robber released after six years and determined to shed his felonious past. But, a parole system, headed by the antagonistic M. Emmet Walsh, harrasses Max as soon as he hits the street, and imprisons him for observation on trumped up drugs charges.

Max snaps and returns to what he knows best, hitting jewellers' and banks with fellow villain Harry Dean Stanton, while trying to hide his life from sympathetic girlfriend Theresa Russell.

Rarely screened and somewhat forgotten, Straight Time boasts a magnetic performance from Hoffman whose simultaneous love and hatred for his line of work is clearly visible in the clenched jaw and haunted eyes.

Hoffman would win an Oscar the following year for Kramer Vs Kramer, but is much better here humanising a remote and not particularly likeable character.

The supporting cast of cult actors immerse themselves in their roles, and Theresa Russell once again reminds you how sorely missed she is from movies.

Keep an eye out for Gary Busey as one of Max's more skittish cohorts, a very young Jake Busey as his son, and Eddie Bunker himself as a smalltime crime lord.

Like Manhunter, Straight Time features action set-pieces which come unnervingly late in the day but are truly explosive. These heist scenes predate Heat, revelling in the mechanics of daytime working with large crowds the adrenalin rush that goes with stepping right outside the law.

It's no spoiler to say that Max's life of crime does not go as planned, but by the sober, satisfying ending Straight Time reveals itself as an undervalued modern classic.

Rob Daniel