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The original Thomas Crown Affair starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway is a dated caper movies that epitomzes the essential emptiness of sixties era caper movies--all Vogue fashion-plate style, no substance. The remake is something of a surprise. Oh, it's as disposable as any caper movie, and it has its share of lapses into "caper movie chic, " but it has pretty good dialogue, two charismatic leads that are manifestly adults and generally (mis)behave as adults, and it has a bravura set piece at the end which takes its inspiration from Rene Magritte rather than any other cinematic source, in which a painting is RETURNED to the museum rather than stolen.

Oh yes, it also has Faye Dunaway as Thomas Crown's psychiatrist, functioning like a greek chorus.

The plot surrounds the theft of a Monet from the New York Museum of Art by millionaire playboy kleptomaniac Crown (played with great aplomb by Pierce Brosnan) and the attempt by insurance investigator Rene Russo to corner him for the crime. The conflict between the two is undercut by erotic tension (of course) that actually functions like erotic tension is supposed to function. Russo lets go of herself for this movie and turns in a barnstorming performance that fans the flames of that tension into a slow burn. This works very very well, in the main because the characters are generally believeable within the confines of the genre. Director John McTiernan marshalls these elements into a slick piece of work that doesn't (usually) call atention to itself as self-consciously stylish but, never the less, actually IS stylish. All in all, an enormously watchable piece of fluff.