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Me neither. Growing up, ours was Mr. P. While he did drive a fancy car and smoked a big cigar, about the most daring thing he did was to routinely pinch my cheek. He was a large man and he used his full body strength. It still hurts. Yet alas, although the ever-pinching Mr. P did wear a rather showy pinkie ring, debonair he was not. But then his profession didn't require an extra helping of elan to ensure success. Except in the movies.
Case in point: Catherine Banning, insurance investigator extraordinaire in The Thomas Crown Affair, played by Rene Russo with the sultry dial turned up to embarrassingly high. Doubtless, this high-priced claims adjuster could probably pinch a mean cheek. And granted, while Miss Banning registers a ratchet or two above garden-variety insurance agent, it still takes a Hollywood-sized leap of faith to swallow the jet-set Mata-Hari her character epitomises. But then, what are we to expect if she is to successfully match wits, egos and libidos with Thomas Crown, the ultimate in bored billionaires and her latest art theft suspect. This probably explains Catherine's designer eveningwear and glittery accessories. Come to think of it, though, Mr. P did have that wide tie with the hunting dogs running in the field.
Mr. Crown, portrayed with a superior air of importance by Pierce Brosnan, is the self-assured dude every man wants to be and every woman wants to be seduced by. Huh? Doesn't that describe James Bond? Ah, what the heck. It's all the same to Mr. Brosnan, our contemporary answer to the recently (and sadly) departed Victor Mature. We won't be taking this natty fellow's acting career too seriously either; at least not until he plays a squeegee bum in New York City who, following the Giuliani crackdown, has no choice but to shape up and become an elected official. But for now, Brosnan's the dapper beefcake. And Russo is his supposed counterpart. The adds promise that their steamy interaction will fog our glasses. Unfortunately, more convincing sizzle can be elicited from a kid's chemistry set.
Still, if the movie theatre's air conditioning system is working well and the popcorn is crunchy enough, it's kind of fun just breathing in the splashy opulence: the Bentleys, the boats and the Bulgari gewgaws. The question is, does The Thomas Crown Affair provide eight dollars worth of vicarious glitz? Whereas the 1968 classic, starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, enthralled audiences with audacious deceptions and engaged them with its split-screen narrative, the remake is a mite too packaged for its own good. Any nuances director John McTiernan employs in his slick homage to the Norman Jewison original only work to gild the lily, painfully pointing out that this second coming has nothing new to add.
The title character's avocational pilfering of a Monet from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (originally, it was a bank heist ) early on in the doings sets the gambit in motion. Enters Catherine Banning, investigator for a Swiss insurance firm. "You didn't think my bosses were just going to cut a check for $100 million did you?" asks the gutsy gal, taking powerful delight in the glimpse of garter she divulges to threateningly announce the role she'll be playing in this probe. I can't imagine Mr. P doing anything of the sort.
Since movie custom dictates that private gumshoes finger the thief long before their publicly employed counterparts, Catherine is immediately onto Crown while N.Y.P.D. detective Michael McCann (Denis Leary) hasn't even had time to order the donuts. Another motion picture tradition stipulates that adversaries in such plots must immediately begin to date, thus opening to speculation, and bringing into high relief, the entire gamut of male-female trust issues: just like the ones you and I face on a daily basis, except with much more expensive bathroom fixtures.
So, will she betray her billionaire antagonist/lover? After all, he's just using her so she won't turn him in, no? But then, he is kind of cute. And richer beyond her wildest dreams (well, almost). Maybe he really loves her. Plus, who's to say she could actually turn him in if she wanted to; perhaps he still has another trick or two up his Armani-attired sleeve?
As the action-adventure lore goes, re-written here by Leslie Dixon and Kurt Wimmer, Brosnan's poor little mogul and Russo's super-sleuth temptress turn the war between the sexes into a high-stakes cat and mouse game. Problem is, while twists and turns abound, clues are virtually non-existent; solutions to the plot's quandaries based on the available information are impossible to cipher. But then, these two extravagant players, as rare as the art they covet, are fictional paradigms on loan to us from Moviedom's Mt. Olympus collection. How could we mere mortals possibly second-guess their moves? It's a pity that McTiernan couldn't juggle the baubles of this fantasy derring-do while also involving the viewer.
Thus, the lush film plays like a travelogue through the land of the rich and powerful. The audience is left to ogle the scenery and can only guess what the beautiful people will do next. At one point, Catherine asks Thomas, "Do you think there's a happy ever after for folks like us?" Now, we know the greedy vamp has chutzpah, but she's not hinting at a sequel, is she?
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