- Awesome Music: The Tenor Boy sings while he works. When he sings, even Albert shuts up... for a moment. The Michael Nyman score definitely counts as well.
- Complete Monster: The brutish Albert Spica, the titular thief, is a tough mob boss with delusions of grandeur and sophistication who frequents an upscale restaurant, bringing along his abused wife Georgina. Albert shows his nastiness whenever he is even mildly irritated by people: brutally beating them, stabbing a man's innocent wife in the face with a fork, and humiliating his own men. When he discovers his wife is having an affair with a kindly, bookish man, Albert viciously tortures a little boy to obtain their location and murders his wife's lover by stuffing the pages of his books down his throat until the poor man suffocates. Albert even threatens Georgina before the murder that he plans to cook and eat her lover.
- Funny Moments: Georgina and Michael are hiding in the bookshop to get away from Albert.Georgina: Are we safe here?
Michael: Can Albert read? - Nausea Fuel: Loads and loads. The first scene depicts the main villain beating up an innocent man, ripping off his clothes, smearing dog excrement on his face and chest, then urinating on him, and things don't improve from here.
- One-Scene Wonder: Ian Dury as Terry Fitch.
- Retroactive Recognition:
- Tim Roth is one of Albert's henchmen.
- Alex Kingston is a waitress.
- Ciarán Hinds is the pimp Cory, another one of Albert's henchmen.
- May Fitch is played by Diane Langton, who would later be best known for playing Nana McQueen in Hollyoaks.
- Grace is played by Liz Smith, who would later be best known for playing Mrs. Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley and Nana in The Royle Family.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The film has been read as a scathing critique of the Thatcher government. An anti-intellectual thug (the then-Tories) takes over a restaurant, obsessed with consuming and excreting everything he can, including people. Simultaneously, he oppresses and abuses the cook (artists), his wife (the general populace), and a well-dressed gentleman who likes reading (the educated classes).
- The Woobie: We see what Georgina goes through in the span of a single week while married to Albert. God knows what else she suffered. It's a wonder that she didn't snap completely.
