The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Directed by: Norman Jewison

Starring: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke

You know, as much as I like Steve McQueen, and as much as Faye Dunaway is hot… this was actually a pretty boring movie.

Thomas Crown (McQueen) is a millionaire playboy and owner of a huge company who’s become bored with life, so he stages an elaborate plan to rob a bank using four other random people. After he gets away with it, Dunaway is called in to figure out what happened. She works for the insurance company and not the police, so she exercises some interesting techniques in finding out what happened. In not too long, she figures out that Crown was the mastermind, although she has no proof.

Here’s where the movie hits a giant wall. Dunaway and McQueen fall in love with each other, and spend a good 45 minutes just boffing and taking rides in helicopters and talking about how he committed this crime, but she’s not going to do anything about it because she loves him now. Eventually he robs another bank using the same method and it works again, and even though the cops think they got him this time, it turns out he gets away yet again.

So… yep, that’s pretty much all there is to it. There’s some interesting stuff at the beginning with Dunaway trying to figure out who did it, but it really doesn’t last that long, and besides, the viewer already knows who did it. And when she finds out and doesn’t do anything about it, well, there’s really no suspense left at all and the movie just lounges around for a while.

All in all, interesting premise, good actors, surprisingly poor turnout. Maybe the remake with Pierce Brosnan is better, but I haven’t seen it, so I couldn’t say.