The Thomas Crown Affair (1999 film)


The Thomas Crown Affair is a 1999 American romantic thriller film directed by John McTiernan and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was written by Leslie Dixon and Kurt Wimmer and is a remake of the 1968 film of the same name. Its story follows Thomas Crown, a billionaire who steals a painting from an art gallery. This causes an attractive insurance investigator to pursue him for the crime and before long the two fall in love. It stars Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo and Denis Leary.
The film was produced by United Artists and Irish DreamTime and was released on August 6, 1999. It grossed $14.6 million during its opening weekend and $124.3 million worldwide, against a budget of $48 million. It received positive reviews and has a 78% approval rating based on 32 votes on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

Thieves infiltrate the Metropolitan Museum of Art inside an actual Trojan horse, preparing to steal an entire gallery of paintings, but are apprehended. In the confusion, billionaire Thomas Crown – the crime's secret mastermind – steals Monet's painting of San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk. NYPD Detective Michael McCann heads the investigation into the theft of the $100 million artwork, with the unwelcome assistance of insurance investigator Catherine Banning.
Crown donates a Pissarro to fill the Monet's space in the museum and falls under Banning's suspicion. She convinces McCann to begin surveillance of Crown, deducing that the wealthy playboy is motivated not by money but the sheer thrill of the crime. Banning accepts Crown's invitation to dinner. Before the date, Crown's therapist correctly guesses that he has found "a worthy adversary" in Banning.
At dinner, Banning has a copy of Crown's keys made; she and her team search his home and discover the Monet, which is revealed to be a taunting imitation, painted over a copy of Poker Sympathy from the Dogs Playing Poker series. Banning confronts Crown, and the two give in to their mutual attraction, spending a passionate night together.
Banning and Crown continue their cat-and-mouse game and their trysts, despite McCann's surveillance. Accompanying Crown on a trip to Martinique, Banning realizes he is preparing to run, and rejects his offer to join him when the time comes. McCann presents Banning with photographs of Crown with another woman, Anna, complicating her feelings toward the case and her prime suspect. Banning and McCann discover that the fake Monet is in fact an expert forgery that could only have been painted by someone with access to the original; they visit the likeliest forger in prison, to no avail, although his attitude suggests to them that he recognises the work.
Later, Banning finds Crown packing his belongings with Anna. He promises Banning his interest lies with her alone, stating that Anna works for him but he would be compromising her to define the nature of their association, and offers to return the Monet, giving her a time and place to meet him when he's finished. Tearfully, Banning leaves and informs McCann.
The following day, the police stake out the museum, waiting to arrest Crown. Banning learns that the fake Monet was painted by Anna; the imprisoned forger is her father, a partner of Crown, who became her guardian. Crown arrives but quickly blends into the crowd, aided by lookalikes in bowler hats a la Magritte's The Son of Man. Evading police, Crown sets off the museum's fire sprinklers. His donated Pissarro, hanging in the Monet's place, is washed clean by the sprinklers to reveal the real Monet.
Crown's plan is made clear: upon stealing the Monet, Crown had Anna forge the Pissarro over it, and "returned" it to the museum. However, Crown has now vanished with another painting, but Banning's employer and McCann consider their case closed as this painting is not covered by Banning's employer. Banning races to meet Crown, but finds only the missing painting. Devastated, she sends the painting to McCann, and boards a plane back to London. Taking her seat, she finds Crown sitting behind her, and the two are passionately reunited.

Cast

Dunaway played the Catherine Banning role in the 1968 original. However, the character's name was Vicki Anderson.

Production

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. McTiernan then received the script and added his own ideas to the production.

Script amendments

After McTiernan signed on to the project, he changed the theme of the central heist and a number of key scenes. McTiernan felt that contemporary audiences would be less forgiving of Thomas Crown if he staged two armed bank robberies for fun as McQueen did in the original, rather than if he staged an unarmed art heist. He wrote the heist based on the Trojan horse theme and on a technical failure of thermal cameras. McTiernan also deemed a polo match that was used in the original and had been rewritten into the new script to be clichéd, and he wanted a scene that conveyed more action and excitement, not just wealth. He substituted a catamaran race, in which Brosnan performed his own stunts.

Filming

Filming took place in several parts of New York City, including Central Park. The corporate headquarters of Lucent Technologies stood in for Crown's suite of offices. Due to the impossibility of filming scenes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the production crew made their own museum on a soundstage. Artisans were hired to create a realistic look to the set. Another scene was filmed in a 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 taken from film shot at different airports with different tow planes. The initial takeoff was photographed at the Harris Hill Soaring Center located at the National Soaring Museum in Elmira, NY. The glider pilot was Thomas L. Knauff, a world record holder, and a member of the US Soaring Hall of Fame.
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.

Paintings

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 original film's 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". Mostly the non-vocal parts are used, but in the final scenes, where Crown returns to the scene of the crime, Simone sings "Oh sinnerman, where are you gonna run to?"

Track listing

  1. "Windmills of Your Mind" – Sting
  2. "Sinnerman" – Nina Simone
  3. "Everything " – Wasis Diop
  4. "Caban La Ka Kratchie" – Georges Fordant
  5. "Black & White X 5" – Bill Conti
  6. "Never Change" – Bill Conti
  7. "Meet Ms. Banning" – Bill Conti
  8. "Goodnight/Breaking & Entering" – Bill Conti
  9. "Glider Pt. 1" – Bill Conti
  10. "Glider Pt. 2" – Bill Conti
  11. "Cocktails" – Bill Conti
  12. "Quick Exit" – Bill Conti

    Release

Theatrical

The Thomas Crown Affair premiered on 27 July 1999 and was theatrically released in the United States on 6 August 1999 by United Artists and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Home media

The Thomas Crown Affair was released on DVD in the LaserDisc format on January 4, 2000 in the United States by MGM Home Entertainment. The DVD includes comments from director John McTiernan. When the film was broadcast on TBS, the Pepsi One logo on the can, from which Banning drinks, had to be deleted.

Reception

Box office

The Thomas Crown Affair grossed $69,305,181 at the United States box office and a further $55,000,000 in other territories, totaling $124,305,181 worldwide against a budget of $48 million.

Critical response

The Thomas Crown Affair received generally positive reviews from critics. Based on 102 reviews collected by the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 70% with an average score of 6.4/10. The site's consensus states: "Sleek, stylish, and painlessly diverting, The Thomas Crown Affair is a remake of uncommon charm."

Awards and accolades

Possible sequel

A possible sequel has long been in development hell. In January 2007, it was reported that the sequel would be a loose remake of the 1964 film Topkapi. Pierce Brosnan said in January 2009 that Paul Verhoeven was attached to direct the film. In 2010, Verhoeven said that he had left the project due to script changes and a change in the regime. The initial script was written by John Rogers from a story by himself and Harley Peyton with additional material provided by Nick Meyer, Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek.
In the April 2014 edition of Empire, John McTiernan revealed that he had written a script for the sequel, while in prison, called Thomas Crown and the Missing Lioness.