Just perfect...

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

What does a late 1960s playboy who has everything do with his time? How about pull off the ultimate robbery…and just for the ever-loving hell of it? That's just what Steve McQueen manages to do as the title character in director Norman Jewison's 1968 crime film THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. McQueen was one of those actors that is depressingly rare in today's high-glamor, hardcore violent Hollywood: an actor where you only have to look at him to know exactly what he is thinking. He's a rich, successful bank executive who's got so much money and leads such a playboy lifestyle; and yet, he is so bored that, perhaps just for entertainment purposes, he concocts a scheme to rob a bank in Boston, initiated by four associates of his. It seems like the perfect crime. But he hasn't counted on a gorgeous insurance investigator, played by Faye Dunaway, finding her way into his life in an attempt to nail him for this huge heist. And at the same time, Dunaway hasn't counted on her quarry's warped nature either.This is just simply one of those films that takes you back on a time trip of sorts to a time when, after the old Hollywood studio system had collapsed and the way of making films got so radically changed, experimentation in editing, cinematography, and plot were the in things. With respect to THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, that feeling is enhanced by the inventive direction of Norman Jewison, who had directed McQueen on 1965's THE CINCINNATI KID, and had also done IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. Jewison, together with legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler (who had worked with him on IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT), combines inventive editing styles and the use of split-screen, a technique later used by Brian DePalma in several of his films (including SISTERS and CARRIE), McQueen and Dunaway really do strike sparks in ways that not even Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo could in the 1999 reworking of this movie. Jack Weston (one of the vicious heavies in 1967's WAIT UNTIL DARK), Yaphet Kotto (in an early role), Paul Burke, Gordon Pinsent, and Richard Bull also do good turns here, helped out by the original screenplay of Alan R. Trustman (who shortly thereafter co-wrote the screenplay for McQueen's mega-hit BULLITT).The film also features a lush orchestral score by French composer Michel LeGrand that also includes the Allan and Marilyn Bergman song "The Windmills Of Your Mind" (sung in the film by Noel Harrison, but better remembered in the version by Dusty Springfield that was a hit in the spring of 1969). "Windmills" itself won the 1968 Oscar for Best Song, and rightfully so.By our standards, the crime and sex may seem hopelessly tame, especially in comparison to, say, a Quentin Tarantino bloodbath; but with people like Jewison, McQueen, and Dunaway involved, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR still ranks as one of the best of its genre type and its era.

A few thoughts...some of the ways that they try to capture the crooks are so unethical that truly all the law enforcement and insurance investigators would be up on criminal charges. What a previous reviewer found sexy in the chess game would probably draw snickers from today's audiences...almost as a parody. Lastly, I guess they still felt that the cops and robbers had to wear hats, when this was really filmed at a time when hats were no longer being worn except by old men. It was out of style by then. I hear that the remake was also quite good but over-sexed. Unfortunately, Hollywood likes to remake good movies more than remaking bad movies and making them better.

Not what I expected. I expected a movie centered around Steve McQueen pulling off a heist. But actually it's a movie where the (brief) heist occurs early and the rest of the movie is about an insurance investigator played by Faye Dunaway trying to snare McQueen. The leaps of logic that allow Dunaway to get on McQueen's trail strain credulity even more than the implausible heist. The plot leaks like a sieve but the flashy direction and charismatic performances by the leads keeps you interested. McQueen and Dunaway definitely had chemistry. Hard to believe that terrible theme song won an Oscar. It's a good film so give it a shot, especially if you're a fan of "the king of cool" Steve McQueen.

When a mystery man assembles a five man team to commit a bank robbery it is going to be difficult to catch him as none of them have seen his face and before the robbery none of them have seen each other. The Mystery man is millionaire Thomas Crown and he didn't mastermind a two million dollar robbery because he needed the cash he did it to see if he could. After the robbers get away there is little to suggest who they were; they were all dressed alike and it is the clothes that the witnesses remember. The police aren't happy to fail but the insurers are even less happy to have to pay out. They call in investigator Vicki Anderson who soon suspects Crown who is one of the five people to know the bank well enough and to have made several trips to Switzerland since the robbery. Of course she has no proof so sets about getting close to him; she tells him that she will get him but he doesn't seem too worried, if anything it just makes life more interesting for him. Eventually it looks as if she has got him but he just says that if he did it once he can do it again… This stylish caper movie is thoroughly amoral; the protagonist is a bank robber who just does it for the thrills, like so many other things he does and the person trying to stop him is quite happy to break the law to catch him… yet it is a lot of fun and the viewer is likely to find himself hoping he will get away with it. Steve McQueen, the epitome of cool, and Faye Dunaway do fine jobs in the lead roles and have a good chemistry; they even manage to make a game of chess erotic! As well as having a good story the film looks great; featuring multiply split scenes and fast cuts that work rather than confusing the viewer.