I mean, without special-effects machinery. One Scotch, neat, to Pierce Brosnan, who wears Thomas's crown with self-deprecating panache. That playboy ennui dissolves instantly when a priceless Monet disappears from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, one of Crown's favorite haunts. Thomas Crown intrigues her mightily. Crown is only too happy to delicately pick it up.
Crown suggests, paying tribute to one of the original movie's famously laconic pickup lines.
As the adversary most likely to break Crown's industrial-strength heart and send him up the river, Russo practically wrests the picture from his bachelor's grip. She's sexy, smart and formidable. Thanks to their mutual presence, great direction and great writing, the flames lick ever higher. The stakes between them choke the air like an outrageous plume. In the only egregious mistake of the movie, Dunaway plays Crown's psychiatrist, who seems to get a kick out of watching his soul go to pieces over this new woman.