| The Thomas Crown Affair | |
|---|---|
Original theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | John McTiernan |
| Produced by | Michael Tadross Pierce Brosnan Beau St. Clair |
| Screenplay by | Leslie Dixon Kurt Wimmer |
| Story by | Alan Trustman |
| Starring | Pierce Brosnan Rene Russo Denis Leary |
| Music by | Bill Conti |
| Cinematography | Tom Priestly |
| Editing by | John Wright |
| Studio | United Artists Irish DreamTime |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | August 6, 1999 |
| Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $48 million |
| Box office | $124,305,181 |
The Thomas Crown Affair is a 1999 American heist film directed by John McTiernan. The film, starring Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo and Denis Leary, is a remake of the 1968 film of the same name.
The film generally received positive reviews. It was a success at the box office, grossing $124,305,181 worldwide.
The film's success prompted plans for a sequel starring Brosnan. In January 2007, it was reported that the sequel, tentatively titled The Topkapi Affair, would be a loose remake of the 1964 film Topkapi starring Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell, and Peter Ustinov.
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Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) is a wealthy private equity tycoon who aches for a challenge. Despite all of his success in business (and with women), he feels bored. Among other diversions, he crashes an expensive catamaran while racing and bets $100,000 on a golf swing simply because "it's a beautiful Saturday morning," and there is not much else to do.
In order to cure his boredom, Crown orchestrates an elaborate heist to steal a painting (San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk) by Monet, valued at $100 million, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The insurers of the artwork send Catherine Banning (Rene Russo), an insurance investigator, to assist NYPD Detective Michael McCann (Denis Leary) in solving the crime.
From the beginning, Banning suspects Crown is behind the theft. A game of cat-and-mouse ensues that results in their becoming lovers and gives Crown exactly what he was seeking, as his psychiatrist puts it: "A worthy adversary."
To prove his sincerity and test her loyalty to him, Crown returns to the museum under the eye of Banning and dozens of police officers, vowing to put the stolen painting back.
The film makes several major changes from the original, most notably the ending. In the original, the insurance investigator betrays Crown but he escapes, saddened that she did not join him. In this film, after the betrayal and the realization that her jealousy of Anna Knutzhorn was unfounded, she unsuccessfully attempts to join him. Her sadness is short-lived as he surprises her by being on her scheduled plane trip home.
There was no painting stolen in the first film, with Crown and his men instead stealing $2.6 million in cash from a bank (The change was based on the idea that the more tumultuous society of the time would be less inclined to sympathise with a man who committed armed robbery out of boredom).
The original story took place in Boston, not New York.
Steve McQueen's version of Thomas Crown has no physical involvement in the actual robbery; he merely plans it. Pierce Brosnan's version steals the painting himself.
Faye Dunaway played the Catherine Banning role in the 1968 original.[2] However, the character's name was Vicki Anderson.
At first, director John McTiernan was unavailable for the project. Pierce Brosnan and his fellow producers considered several directors before returning to their original choice.[3] McTiernan then received the script and added his own ideas to the production.[4]
After McTiernan signed onto the project, he changed the theme of the central heist and a number of key scenes. McTiernan felt that at the time the film was released, audiences would be less forgiving of Thomas Crown if he staged two armed bank robberies for fun like McQueen did in the original, than if he staged an unarmed art heist. He rewrote the heist around the classic Trojan horse entrance and technical failure of the thermal cameras. McTiernan also deemed a polo match as used in the original and rewritten into the original new script to be too much of a cliché, and wanted a scene that conveyed more action and excitement, not just wealth—he hence created the catamaran race, in which Brosnan undertook his own stunts.
McTiernan accepted a number of echo references to the 1968 version of the film. The most obvious is the casting of Faye Dunaway as Crown's psychiatrist; in 1968, Dunaway played Catherine Banning's counterpart, insurance investigator Vicki Anderson. A second is the use of the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" in the ballroom scene, a song popularized by the earlier film.
Some critics panned the ending due to its sharp contrast from the original 1968 version. In the original, Vicki Anderson didn't trust Crown and betrayed him to the police, thereby losing Crown's love in the end. In the 1999 film Banning betrays Crown in the end, but Crown winds up getting together with her anyway in the final scene on a plane headed to Europe.
Filming took place throughout New York City, including Central Park. The corporate headquarters of Lucent Technologies stood in for Crown's suite of offices. Due to it being nearly impossible to film interior scenes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the producers' request was "respectfully declined"),[2] the production crew made their own museum on a soundstage. Artisans were hired to create a realistic look to the set.[5] Another scene was filmed in an entirely different city landmark: the main research library of the New York Public Library.
The glider scenes were shot at Ridge Soaring Gliderport and Eagle Field in Pennsylvania and at Corning-Painted Post Airport in New York. The two glider aero-tow shots were actually taken from film shot at different airports with different tow planes. The initial take-off was photographed at Harris Hill Soaring Center, Elmira, NY. The glider pilot was Thomas L. Knauff, a world record holder,[6] and a member of the US Soaring Hall of Fame.[7] The glider used is a Schempp-Hirth Duo Discus, in which it is physically impossible to reach the front controls from the rear seat (the close shot sections were shot in a modified cockpit under a blue screen in the studio).
A number of McTiernan's vehicles then appear in the next sequence, as well as his farm. The tractor in the background after the glider lands belongs to McTiernan, while the dark green Shelby Mustang that Crown drives on Martinique was originally intended to be used for Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in 1993's Last Action Hero, and was retrieved from the director's garage for this film. The six-wheeled Jeep was built specifically for the film. The house used as Crown's Caribbean getaway is owned by one of the 30 original families who settled in Martinique in the 17th century. The scenes around it, like the beach, are a montage of various other parts of Martinique, including St Pierre and the Lamentin airport.
The paintings, copies of which were supplied by "Troubetzkoy Paintings" in New York, appearing in the film are:
The soundtrack was composed by Bill Conti and arranged by Jack Eskew. It features a variety of jazz arrangements which harken back to the film's original version. In addition, the film ends with a reprise of the Academy Award-winning song "Windmills of Your Mind" sung by Sting. Throughout the film, segments are used of a song by Nina Simone called "Sinnerman" (from the album Pastel Blues, 1965). Mostly the non-vocal parts are used (hand-clapping and piano riffs), but in the final scenes, where Crown returns to the scene of the crime, Simone sings "Oh sinnerman, where are you gonna run to?"
| The Thomas Crown Affair | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Bill Conti, Sting and Nina Simone | |
| Released | September 7, 1999 (original) March 8, 2002 (re-release) |
| Recorded | 1999 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Length | 37:44 |
| Label | Ark 21 (original) Pangaea (re-release) |
| Professional reviews | |
The film made $69,305,181 at the U.S. box office and a further $55,000,000 in other territories, totaling $124,305,181 worldwide.[9]
The film generally received positive reviews. Based on 91 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 67%, with an average score of 6.4/10.[10]
A sequel has long been in development. In January 2007, it was reported that the sequel would be a loose remake of the 1964 film Topkapi.[11] Brosnan said in January 2009 that Paul Verhoeven was attached to direct the film.[12] In 2010, Verhoeven said he had left the project due to script changes and a change in the regime.[13]
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