TAKE THE MONET AND RUN
An updated remake of the 1968 film starring the late Steve McQueen and the loverly Faye Dunaway, this Thomas Crown Affair stars Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. In keeping with the nineties, the theft of a highly valued Monet painting is the focus, as opposed to the lowly bank heist of the 1968 version.
Brosnan's Thomas Crown lives in a Manhattan townhouse that looks like an art gallery, itself, and he appears as sophisticated and sleek as one of his own art objects. Russo comes in as the canny insurance investigator who is up to Brosnan's game. She suspects him as the billionaire gentleman-thief right from the get-go, a fact which doesn't escape Brosnan's notice.
The immediate attraction between the two fuels the action of the film. The surroundings of extreme "rich and beautiful" elan adds an element of longed-for (well, by some of us) fantasy and nostalgia for the decadent entertainment of the sixties cinema.
There's nothing here for the current techno-special effects set. As another touch of nostalgia (or irony), Dunaway, the sexy investigator of the original cast, pops up as Brosnan's psychiatrist.
Directed by John McTiernan, the film is rated R and is 2:05 hours long.