Lindsey Lowson / 09 June 2025 / Categories: Movie and TV Shows, Movie

Thomas Crown Affair 1999 Remake Pierce Brosnan Rene Russo

Oozes style and sophistication, forgot how great this film actually is

Ignore the reviews just watch it. I cannot think of a single person who wouldn’t get something big from this movie from a pre pubescent horny teen to a puritanical grandma you expect to knit and play cards not enjoy a lot off raunchy sex appeal.

This is a really sexy, seductive heist movie. And it’s subtle, so it’s not loads of humping and nudity, more suggested and suave, a film that exudes style and passion, an education for women wanting to bag a billionaire, a “love” story inter woven in a clever art heist. A layered script where everyone knows who dunnit, it’s more a tale of will the gorgeous Rene Russo, Vicki, insurance agent brought in to solve the puzzle and stop a 100 million dollar payout of a precious Monet, hailed and regailed as the first piece of art in an Impressionism movement that changed history. Can she forego the charm and obvious attraction of the loner billionaire who cannot connect with anyone.

It’s a remake of a film made 30 years earlier starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunnaway, with an older Dunnaway recast as Thomas Crown’s therapist psychiatrist whose session with the aloof loner sets up the story and the character of the protagonist, lovable rogue who’s name appears in the title.

It’s a double entendre as the title of film alludes more to to sultry interludes between Thomas, Pierce Brosnan and Vicki.

There are two reasons to watch this classic movie that somehow has failed to date in the 26 years since its release.

First of all Rene Russo’s wardrobe is a testament to stylish simple dressing the world over. The clothes and the glamour so perfectly executed and classic, the film could have been shot last year. Pierce Brosnan matches perfectly in Saville Row tailoring fashionable today a Glaswegian poor boy whose social climb included traversing the corridors of Oxford before a steely demeanor ensured financial heights insufficient to keep an insatiable will to win and outsmart in equal measure abated.

And so he plays at crime, not for the money but for the pleasure, achieving the impossible right under the nose of every authority and security system put in place to stop him. Why? Because he can.

The film catapults us into an anything is possible mindset, winging us the audience between high stakes gambles, fine dining and luxury all aspire to but few will ever touch, and some truly magnificent cinematography as we power race 100,000 dollar at the time catamaran or fly like a bird in a two man glider, the visuals and excitement as good as the rollercoaster riding at the IMAX theatre.

But it is the electricity and chemistry on screen created by Brosnan and Russo make this a classic you’ll return to over and over.

Like I said it’s sexy. And in a way I’d imagine every director hopes to create, electricity between cast members palpable on screen. The truth is few actually achieve it as good as this.

It’s so good I don’t think Brosnan and Russo were acting.

Rotton tomatoes gave this movie a solid 69%

I think it’s worth 99% at least.