The Thomas Crown Affair Review
By Joe Lozito
An "Affair" to Forget
Watching the "Thomas Crown Affair" gives no indication of why exactly Hollywood felt the need to remake the 1968 Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway thriller. Perhaps it was the kitsch value of having Faye Dunaway make a cameo appearance as Crown's Psychiatrist. Or maybe it was the kitsch value of having Sting remake the Oscar-winning song from the original film, "Windmills of Your Mind". Either way, aside from making Crown an art thief instead of a bank robber, there's very little new or original about the film.
Portrayed by Pierce Brosnan (who also produced the film) with a very welcome lighter touch than he brings to James Bond, Crown is one of those Hollywood-film-gazillionaires who is seen betting $100,000 on a single golf shot, wrecking a gorgeous Catamaran because "he likes the splash", and jetting off to an unnamed Caribbean island where he maintains a beautiful hilltop villa with a closet full of woman's clothes. Oh, yes, he also apparently plans ridiculously elaborate art heists in his spare time.
It is unclear from the film how long Mr. Crown has been doing this, but he has apparently gone unchallenged until he swipes a priceless Monet from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met wouldn't give their blessing to this film, probably because their security system is portrayed as a joke). The NYPD, headed up by Denis Leary (yes, Denis Leary!) doesn't suspect Crown simply because...well, he's Thomas Crown. That is, of course, until Rene Russo's beautiful and slightly mysterious insurance investigator takes the case.
Ms. Russo, who sports a wardrobe that's even more unbelievable than the art thievery in the film, continues this summer's trend of stunning insurance investigators (along with Catherine Zeta-Jones in "Entrapment"). Ms. Russo has a wonderful, commanding presence on screen and she bites into the role of the brassy Catherine Banning with sexy gusto, at times overpowering Mr. Brosnan's trademark charm.
No one directs a "sequence" quite like John McTiernan (Die Hard, Predator). He has shown time and again that he is adept at creating thrilling Hollywood action movies. It is possible that he wanted to do this film in order to try his hand at more subtle crime sequences (i.e., with no explosions). The problem is that this is a film with very few sequences. It's a caper-film with only two real capers (which are, at least, very clever).
The rest of the film is a by the numbers cat-and-mouse game between Mr. Brosnan and Ms. Russo. Will she find out that he stole the painting? If she does, will she turn him in? Or will they finally admit that they really love each other? The character's playful sparring wears very thin very quickly until the overriding questions becomes: will anyone care either way?
