Film Review
With a budget of six million dollars,
The
Thomas Crown Affair stands as one of the most expensive caper
movies of all time, but the film's lavish production values and high
stylisation can scarcely conceal the flimsy characterisation and
threadbare plot. Director Norman Jewison looks as if he was on a
mission to make the most egregiously pretentious film possible outside
a French film studio and
uses dubious stylistic devices - split and multiple screens, excessive
camera motion, etc. - to an almost ludicrous level of excess.
This artistic overload succeeds in masking the plot imperfections
(just) but any intelligent spectator cannot help feeling that he is
being slightly conned.
Irritating as this self-conscious show of frenzied artistic onanism is,
the film is not entirely without charm and is certainly streets ahead
of its vapid 1999 remake. The heist sequence is well executed,
even if the use of multiple screens needlessly muddles what is
happening. Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway bring a subtle undercurrent
of mischievous humour without which the film would be unbearably
po-faced. Their now famous chess scene, in which Miss Dunaway
licks her lips whilst suggestively caressing the tip of her bishop
should have earned the film an X certificate - it is certainly on a par
with the raunchiest love scene in a French porno. Although it has
nothing whatsoever to do with the plot, another bonus is the Oscar
winning title song
Windmills of the
Mind, one of Michel Legrand's best compositions.
The Thomas Crown is clearly the
work of a deluded artist who has seen too many Claude Lelouch films, but
that doesn't prevent it from being fun.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Millionaire financier Thomas Crown is bored with his life and so
decides to mastermind the perfect bank robbery. Hiring a team of
complete strangers to help him in his heist, he succeeds in stealing
$2.6 million from an American bank. This he manages to smuggle
out of the country and hide away in a Swiss bank account.
Insurance investigator Vicki Anderson is hired to recover the stolen
money and, through woman's intuition, deduces that Thomas Crown is her
man - in more ways than one...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.