The Thomas Crown Affair [1999] (DVD)

It is extremely rare that a remake comes anywhere near the quality of the original film. It is even rarer when it actually surpasses the original. In my personal opinion, the Pierce Brosnan/Renée Russo remake of The Thomas Crown Affair is one of those most rare birds. The story is about an extremely wealthy man - Thomas Crown - who steals a precious work of art just for the fun of it, and how the insurance investigator realizes it was him and tries every way she can to recover the painting - including getting personally involved, in all senses of the word! The original starred Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. While McQueen was well known for his bad-boy ...  Read the complete review

Pierce Brosnan stars in this thriller as Thomas Crown a billionaire financier who is not satisfied by his huge wealth and comfortable life and seeks thrills in a different way which includes stealing items as he enjoys the challenge of defeating the secirity systems in place and the thrill of not getting caught. The film opens wth his putting together a team to help him steal a painting in broad daylight from a museum,he uses the team as a distraction to botch th attempt while he takes advantage of he chaos to steal the painting and then hang it in his own home. However he has not got clean away as an insurance inspector called Catherine Branning and played ...  Read the complete review

Thomas Crown is a billionaire working in the finance business. He seeks thrills as he finds his life boring. His latest plan is to steel a painting he likes from his favourite gallery in the daytime in front of everyone. To do this he gets a gang of people to bundle a robbery where he can then sneak in and take the painting unnoticed. Thomas is successful in his robbery and soon he has the painting hanging in his home. The gallery owners claim for the painting on their insurance but as it is so valuable they have to have an officer investigate the claim and help with the police investigation and this happens to be Catherine Branning. She assists the police ...  Read the complete review

Though I have never seen the original version, The Thomas Crown Affair is rumoured to be one of the very few remakes that actually surpass the original in terms of how good it is. Remaking a film with Steve McQueen is a tall order for anyone, as everything I have ever seen him in has had me thoroughly impressed. However, the idea of a multi-millionaire businessman stealing a painting for fun being played by Pierce Brosnan has me wondering whether there could actually be a more perfect job of casting. Alongside him as the insurance investigator is the gorgeously sultry Rene Russo, and the two certainly do sparkle up the screen. The two are very well ...  Read the complete review

I remember watching The Thomas Crown Affair at the cinema when it was released in 1999 but that was so long ago that when I watched it on DVD at the weekend, I couldn't remember much about it so it was like watching it fresh. I had remembered that I had enjoyed it very much first time aroundthough, and the second viewing was just as good. The film I am talking about is actually a remake of the 1968 film of the same name starring Steve McQuenn and Faye Dunaway. I haven't seen the original but I do think I would like to because it would be good to see what a difference thirty years in advances in technology would have made to the plot. The 1999 film stars Pierce ...  Read the complete review