The Thomas Crown Affair (1999 film)

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For the 1968 original film, see The Thomas Crown Affair (1968 film).

The Thomas Crown Affair
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	John McTiernan
Produced by	Michael Tadross Pierce Brosnan Beau St. Clair
Written by	Alan Trustman Leslie Dixon Kurt Wimmer
Starring	Pierce Brosnan Rene Russo Denis Leary
Music by	Bill Conti
Cinematography	Tom Priestly
Editing by	John Wright
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	August 6, 1999 (US) August 20, 1999 (UK)
Running time	113 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$48,000,000
Followed by	The Thomas Crown Affair 2
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Thomas Crown Affair is a 1999 heist film, a remake of the 1968 film of the same name. It stars Pierce Brosnan in the title role, a self-made billionaire who steals a painting and is tracked by an insurance investigator played by Rene Russo.

The film was released on DVD on January 4, 2000. The DVD included a commentary with director John McTiernan.^[1]

The success of the film prompted a sequel to be planned for release in 2009 titled The Topkapi Affair, which is also a remake—of the 1964 film Topkapi starring Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell, and Peter Ustinov. Both films are based on Eric Ambler's 1962 novel, The Light of Day.^[2]

1 Cast
2 Plot
3 Soundtrack
- 3.1 Track listing
4 Reception
5 Production
6 Popular culture references
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Cast

Pierce Brosnan as Thomas Crown
Rene Russo as Catherine Olds Banning
Denis Leary as Detective Michael McCann
Fritz Weaver as John Reynolds
Frankie Faison as Detective Paretti
Ben Gazzara as Andrew Wallace
Mark Margolis as Heinrich Knutzhorn
Esther Cañadas as Anna Knutzhorn
Faye Dunaway as The Psychiatrist

Faye Dunaway played the Catherine Banning role in the 1968 original.^[3] However, the character's name was Vicki Anderson.

[edit] Plot

Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan), a self-made billionaire, is an adventurous businessman who savors a good challenge. Among other diversions, he crashes an expensive sailing catamaran while racing and bets one hundred thousand dollars on a golf swing simply because "it's a beautiful Saturday morning," and there is not much else to do. Crown steals a painting (San Giorgio Maggiore at dusk) by Monet valued at one hundred million dollars. The insurers of the artwork send insurance investigator Catherine Banning (Rene Russo) to assist the police in solving the crime. From the beginning, Banning suspects Crown is behind the theft. The elaborate game of cat-and-mouse that ensues gives Crown exactly what he was seeking, in the form of Banning: "A worthy adversary."

[edit] Soundtrack

The critically acclaimed 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 movie, 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 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
All Music Guide link

[edit] Track listing

Windmills of Your Mind - Sting
Sinnerman - Nina Simone
Everything (...Is Never Quite Enough) - Wasis Diop
Caban La Ka Kratchie - Georges Fordant
Black and White
Never Change
Meet Ms. Banning
Goodnight/Breaking and Entering
Glider pt. I
Glider pt. II
Cocktails
Quick Exit

[edit] Reception

The film made $69,305,181 at the U.S. box office and a further $55,000,000 in the rest of the world, making a combined box office total of $124,305,181. With a budget of $48,000,000, the film was a financial success. A sequel, The Topkapi Affair, is due to be released sometime in 2009.

[edit] 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.^[4] McTiernan then received the script and added his own ideas to the production.^[5] 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"),^[3] the production crew made their own museum on a soundstage. Artisans were hired to create a realistic look to the set.^[6] 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 glider pilot was Thomas L. Knauff, a world record holder,^[7] and a member of the US Soaring Hall of Fame. ^[8]The glider used is a Schempp-Hirth Duo Discus. It is physically impossible to reach the front controls from the rear seat of any tandem two seater. Instead the instructor in the rear seat demonstrates to the pupil by using dual controls. Just undoing the straps would be hazardous; the pilot could be ejected by turbulence through the canopy. The rear instrument panel was removed in order to film the scene in the studio.^{[citation needed]}

When the film aired on NBC and TBS Superstation, the Pepsi ONE logo on a soda can was blanked out.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Popular culture references

Several references are made to the 1968 version of the film. One comes through the use of the song "The Windmills of Your Mind", popularized by the earlier film. A second reference comes through the casting of Faye Dunaway as Crown's psychiatrist; in 1968, Dunaway played Catherine Banning's counterpart, insurance investigator Vicki Anderson.

Another cultural reference in the film features the 1964 painting The Son of Man by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It first appears when Crown and Banning tour the museum together and she remarks on it as a likeness of him. In the movie's climax, Crown plays on her expectations, dressing himself and his look-alikes as "faceless businessmen" in topcoats, derby hats, and briefcases carrying copies of the painting.

In a reference back to the Thomas Crown films, Timbaland refers to the main character Thomas Crown in Nelly Furtado's single "Promiscuous" and in Justin Timberlake's song "Chop Me Up".