Priceless Art It's Not
But Thomas Crown Paints a Nice Picture

There are two kinds of movies made about master thieves. In one, the perpetrator of the crime is a mystery, and the audience -- like the detective (policeman, inspector, etc.) -- must figure out whodunit. In others, like the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the question isn't who but how. And, as one would suspect, seeing the game of cat and mouse is the focus of excitement.

Taking a break from playing everyone's favorite superspy James Bond, Pierce Brosnon is stretching his role-playing abilities. Instead of playing a rich, womanizing, playboy superspy, he's playing a rich, womanizing, playboy financier. Nevertheless, Crown suffers from boredom. As his analyst (played by Faye Dunaway, who co-starred in the original) points out, Crown desires to find a worthy competitor. The business world offers no more challenges, so he has orchestrated a marvelous crime in order to steal a priceless work of art from a New York gallery.

Entering the scene, hot on the tail of the police, is Catherine Banning (Rene Russo). Banning is a bounty hunter for the agency that insured the painting. If she recovers the artwork, she gets a cool five million. Unwilling to work alongside the NYPD, she targets her suspect and sets the game in motion. Crown knows he's a suspect, she knows he knows, and he knows she knows he knows. Needless to say, it becomes difficult to understand who is playing whom.

But that's the fun of The Thomas Crown Affair. The question is never "whodunit" but why, and what happens next? The intricate power struggle between the rich tycoon and the thrill-seeking bounty hunter is a thing of beauty. None of this would be worth a dime, however, if the actors hadn't been able to pull it off. This is not an action film, or a crime story filled with gunplay. It's character driven.

As mentioned earlier, this is the kind of role Brosnon has been doing for years, first with television's "Remington Steele" and now with the James Bond movies like Tomorrow Never Dies. But the real treat was seeing Denis Leary playing a nice guy. Leary usually plays mean, sadistic, and ruthless individuals. Here, however, he shows that he can play the underdog, vying for Banning's affection.

Although The Thomas Crown Affair is essentially a cops and robbers movie, there are some steamy sex scenes and onscreen nudity inappropriate for younger viewers. That aside, it's a good movie, involving an interesting crime and more interesting pursuit. Because it's a character story, it's a nice break from the summer action movies.

MY RATING: 7 out of 10.

RATED:
RUN TIME: 113 min.

Priceless Art It's Not But Thomas Crown Paints a Nice Picture

Priceless Art It's Not
But Thomas Crown Paints a Nice Picture