The Thomas Crown Affair

This is the movie equivalent of a beach book, a glossy story about beautiful, wealthy, people that not only doesn’t require much thinking but actually repels it. Think too much (They allow briefcases and food in the galleries of a major museum? You can get a search warrent for a hunch? Have any business negotiations ever included such ridiculous posturing? What are these thrill seekers going to find to thrill them if they do make their getaway? You can do that to a painting? What is the purpose of that last fake-out?) and you’ll miss the slight but real pleasures of this remake of the 1968 version starring Steve McQueen as a wealthy but bored businessman who robs a bank and Faye Dunaway as the insurance company investigator hired to solve it.

In this version, Pierce Brosnan (who also produced) plays Crown, now a wealthy but bored businessman who robs the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Rene Russo as the investigator. Faye Dunaway appears briefly as Crown’s therapist, to let us know that all of this is just acting out due to his fear of, guess what, intimacy. That is just one example of the movie’s biggest failure — more clever than smart, it tells us instead of showing us such major points as the main characters’ fear of trusting someone else and the fact that they find each other uniquely not boring. But in late summer we are willing to let movies like this one carry us along in exchange for some steamy moments, some crafty twists, and some beautiful scenery — Brosnan and Russo included.

Parents should know that the R rating comes from some swear words, nudity (Russo appears topless and Brosnan appears bottomless), and a steamy but not very explicit sex scene. Families should discuss what makes people afraid to trust others, and the consequences of that fear, and what people do to make themselves feel alive and involved.