Badly dated heist flick, with Steve McQueen miscast as a bored, wealthy businessman looking for a new thrill. He gets it in the form of a bank robbery he engineers with the did of several others. But soon enough hot on his trail, is a flamboyant, female insurance investigator (Dunaway) and an intrepid cop (Burke). The film reeks of its period (the late '60s), which is fun to a point. Besides McQueen's miscasting (watch for his seemingly endless, very fake laughing fit right after the heist) and Dunaway's hammy, unintentionally laughable acting (and the fact that she is garbed in increasingly silly outfits more suited to a circus clown), former TV director Norman Jewison apparently decided to photograph the whole thing in a herky-jerky, mod style. It was 1968, remember. The result is many harsh transitions from one scene to the next, and Jewison often favors long shots when closeups would have done better. As a result, it is virtually impossible to watch this movie today. Better to check out the 1999 remake. There are also many other heist films worth seeing.
Review of The Thomas Crown Affair
