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Festivale online magazine
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The original Thomas Crown Affair with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen set standards for style, with it's haute couture costumes, overt sexuality, BORDERline morality and multi-image collage sequence. And of course the Oscar (R) Award winning song Windmills of my Mind.
The nineties version with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo is more naturalistic. The story is still about two over-achieving amoral loners, a multimillionaire business man and a wealthy female insurance investigator/bounty hunter. They dress amazingly, indulge expensive habits, have exuberant sex and complicated mating rituals in gorgeous surroundings. Well, maybe this isn't everyday life, but the emphasis this time is much more on the characters. |
 Movie Poster, The Thomas Crown Affair |
| This time out a self-made Tommy Crown is stealing from an art gallery, not a bank and affianados will find great joy in the Maigrette references. He masterminds a theft at a fictional major New York gallery and is pursued by the Mr Average police detective (Denis Leary) and the elegant huntress Catherine Banning (Russo). I found the theft of public art a lot more reprehensible than ripping off a bank full of paper money, but one quickly gets lost in the fun of the chase and the constant, equal, battle of wits and nerves between the two principals. |  Movie still, Denis Leary in The Thomas Crown Affair, |
This filmed is filled with humour, Ms Russo's laugh emphasises the fun. It certainly makes the sex scenes, although I'll bet you several dollars no-one with any sense tries to mate on a marble staircase in real life.
 Movie still, Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair |
| Together Brosnan and Russo wipe just about everyone off the screen except for Faye Dunaway as Crown's psychiatrist. She gets to be a kind of chorus, the kind of exposition role that some people will automatically dislike, but is great fun to watch. Leary as everyman has a strong role, but just about everyone else disappears into the background. |
 Movie still, Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair |
Ruso is in face one of only two female characters in the film, all the crooks, all the police are male. The only woman is a skeletal blonde model we see in Thomas Crown's company. All in all, this is a watchable, fun film with personable characters and a clever ending.
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 | Ali Kayn
Due for Australian release August 12, 1999 |
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Published in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 
Last updated: 12-Aug-1999 