As the two dance around the crime with one another, they each prove to be formidable adversaries of the other. Every step that Catherine makes to ensnare Crown into revealing his crime backfires since he is always one step ahead of her. However, they are both thrown for a loop when they fall for each other. As this game of cat and mouse plays out, Crown's saving grace is being able to talk things out with his shrink, played by Faye Dunaway of the original Thomas Crown Affair, back in 1968. I thought this was a clever touch by the filmmakers.
While I enjoyed The Thomas Crown Affair and it had a great ending, I was somewhat annoyed by Rene Russo and her "I'm so sexy" attitude. There's a rather steamy sex scene that takes place on Crown's marble steps which seemed unnecessary in getting the point of their attraction across (Really? I mean really, that can't be comfortable...), and while I am certainly not a prude, it just seemed like more of an opportunity to get Russo's clothes off than as something to add to the plot.
Pierce Brosnan is perfect as Thomas Crown, however, as he always has that mischievous twinkle in his eye and Russo is good as tough-as-nails, yet emotionally vulnerable Catherine Banning, but again, she just came off a little too smug for my liking. Denis Leary does a good job playing the beleaguered detective who just can't seem to catch a break, but I miss his typical snarky attitude since it only showed up a couple of times.
What really disappointed me was the complete lack of special features, aside from the original commentary that is only found on the DVD version of the film, which is included on a separate disc. This movie is only 11 years old and you'd think there would be more special features. These actors are all alive, so why not a retrospective? It's a shame, really. While the transfer to Blu-ray looks really good, especially those scenes that take place at Crown's tropical paradise escape, I wasn't too crazy about the audio aspect of the film. For starters, I barely noticed the surround sound, if at all. But what's worse was that we kept having to turn it up when the actors were talking and then back down when the action kicked into gear and the music exploded. That doesn't make for a good movie-watching experience, in my opinion. Fortunately, once we got past the initial heist, these turn up/turn down times were rare. Lastly, the menu for the Blu-ray was quite boring, but when I popped the DVD in to see the difference in quality and transfer between the two, it had a really cool menu system placing characters from the movie into museum paintings. Why go all out for the old DVD and not for the Blu-ray? Crazy.
If you already own The Thomas Crown Affair on DVD, I can't honestly say that it is worth a repurchase on Blu-ray. Yes, the movie looks crisp and clear, so if you have been thinking of adding it to your collection, go for Blu-ray over DVD. However, with no additional special features and the sound issues I mentioned, it's not worth a repurchase.
