The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 2.35:1 16x9 enh, Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1999	Commentary Tracks	Yes, 1 - John McTiernan (Director)
Running Time	108:38 minutes (not 113 minutes as stated on the packaging)	Other Extras	Featurette-The Thomas Crown Affair: The Making Of The Master Piece (23:53) Promotional Music Video-Windmills Of Your Mind-Sting Booklet
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (70:38)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Menu
Region	2,4	Director	John McTiernan
Studio Distributor	Fox Home Video	Starring	Pierce Brosnan Rene Russo Denis Leary
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Bill Conti

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 192Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English English For The Hearing Impaired German German For The Hearing Impaired Spanish Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish Portuguese Polish	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, not much, but one particular instance is incredibly annoying.
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) is a wealthy financier with little in his life that challenges him. He wants for nothing, so for kicks he decides to plan the perfect robbery from a New York Art Museum. A very stylish but improbable theft sequence follows, during which a Monet worth $100 million dollars is stolen from the museum.

    The insurance underwriters have no desire to pay out for the theft of this painting, and so they send Catherine Banning (Rene Russo) to locate the painting. Somehow, the FBI investigator in charge of this investigation (Denis Leary) simply allows Catherine complete access to the investigation. Indeed, she is the one that predominantly figures out the why, how, who and wherefore of this crime.

    An attraction develops between Thomas and Catherine, and the remainder of the movie consists of a three-way cat-and-mouse game between Thomas, Catherine and the FBI, all very stylishly executed on-screen.

    This movie's fundamental failing, however, lies in the excessive leaps of faith required on the part of the viewer. Some of the happenings that occur on-screen are just so ludicrous that they ruin any chance for suspension of disbelief, leaving us only with a moderate interest in the actual outcome of the movie.

Video

    The transfer is very sharp and clear. A lot of the early part of the movie takes place in very darkly-lit areas and these are rendered very well by this transfer. Indeed, shadow detail throughout the entire movie is excellent, with a tremendous amount of subtle detail visible. There is no low level noise.

    Something that should receive specific mention is that this transfer frequently exhibits lens flare, as the camera looks directly into one light or another. This was a deliberate artistic choice by the director John McTiernan in order to capture a certain retro feel for the movie. Personally, I thought it was more distracting than anything else, but as it was present in the original, this is not a transfer artefact.

    The colours were all very well and vibrantly rendered. There is a large variety of locations on show here, all of which are beautifully depicted, with lush greens, deep browns and vibrant blues all on display.

    There were no MPEG artefacts visible in this transfer. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of a number of scenes which exhibited moderate aliasing. These detracted from the overall quality of the transfer, which was a pity. Film artefacts were extremely rare.

    This DVD is an RSDL disc with the layer change at 70:38, between Chapters 28 and 29. It is actually quite a lengthy layer change and quite noticeable on my Toshiba 2109, though it is well-placed which makes it a little more tolerable. Indeed, this is one of the longest transitions I have ever seen for a layer change, lasting a good proportion of one second in time.

Audio

    Dialogue was always easy to understand and clear.

    There were no audio sync problems noted with this transfer.

    The musical score for this movie was provided by Bill Conti, probably better known for his scoring of the movie Rocky. I mention this because the score for this movie is in a very similar and recognizable style for Bill Conti - these days it sounds a little dated, but it certainly sounded very stylish, in keeping with the rest of the movie.

    The surround channels were not heavily used. Music featured prominently in the surround mix, but there were few ambient sounds and special effects that made their way into the rear soundscape. Overall, the effect was only moderately enveloping.

    The subwoofer got plenty of use to support the music, with a great deal of bass provided by the .1 channel at times. Indeed, it was almost too much at times, with the subwoofer occasionally calling attention to itself.

Menu

Audio Commentary - John McTiernan (Director)

Featurette-Making Of

Promotional Music Video - Windmills Of Your Mind - Sting

Theatrical Trailer

Booklet

• Pan & Scan version
• Trailer for the original Thomas Crown Affair

• Making-Of Featurette
• Music Video

    The video quality is very good, and of near-reference quality.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are passable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
19th February 2000