My Thoughts on the Film, The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)...

[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS]

What can I say about a remake of a film I wholly enjoy and will watch again and again? Usually, I’m not so impressed, considering the updated version a one-off. But not with The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). This is a great film, one that checks all the marks I require for such a case.

But it is a different film, although the premise, thank Heavens, is the same: an insurance investigator targets a suspect in a high-end robbery, and then embarks on a romantic relationship with said target while investigating him.

Catherine Banning is the insurance investigator, played with intelligent, and—yes—seductive aplomb by Rene Russo. Pierce Brosnan, channeling his timely casting of James Bond, adds swagger and cleverness to the titular role. The chemistry between the two actors ignites immediately. And like Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, I found myself rooting for both of them at the get-go.

And like Dunaway, Russo lights up the screen with her flirtatiousness and sexuality. As a nice surprise, Dunaway has a role in this film as Crown's therapist.

Updating the trends and tropes of 1960s American films, Crown is now an art thief, not just a base bank robber. He finds the adrenaline rush of performing—and succeeding—at such thefts exhilarating. Like McQueen’s rendition, Crown is a thrill seeker who is not completely satisfied with fighting physics on a catamaran or flying in a glider. Success or failure does not seem to be important to him; it’s the rush of the gesture itself, not unlike how a journey is more important than the destination. Hence, art thievery.

Banning has an interesting backstory of her own—with her meager beginnings as a daughter of an American Midwestern skip tracer to her globe-trotting success as an insurance investigator—and is believably the match for Crown wit for wit. Then emotion enters the scene. They fall in love, and with the progression of their relationship, the deeper their conflict grows.

Although there is no chess scene in this version—I was kind of hoping there would be one when I first saw this film near its release—their relationship intensifies during a contemporary, almost improvised tango they share. This scene works both to cement their relationship and to illustrate a turning point in the plot. I still would have liked to see a chess match between them, though.

The ending of this version is more satisfactory—or more Hollywoody—than the original as well. I prefer this one: I rooted for them, they both succeeded, and they wound up together.

I recommend this film to those who appreciate caper films and romance, and fans of Brosnan and Russo. And, like the original 1968 version, I’d watch this film again and again.