Inside Man

Note: I stay away from describing the plot in any detail because it would be very hard to do so without spoiling elements of it. "Inside Man" starts out as a no holds barred, high octane action-thriller, and by its midpoint fully transforms into a breezy, tongue-in-cheek heist movie, reminiscent of The Sting. I felt it to be a little over-plotted, but that comes with the genre - the expected twists and turns are all here, thankfully mostly in non-expected ways. Contrivances abound, and we don't really learn the background of the heist (ie. how the robbers learned about their target) but the story and the overall atmosphere more than make up for this. The meticulously designed plot also compensates for the lack of real 3D characterization - save for Denzel Washington's ambitious policeman hero, who at least achieves a level of humanity throughout the story. The character interaction between him and his sidekick (Chiwetel Ejiofor of "Serenity" fame) and the frustrated captain played by Willem Defoe is great with some sparkling dialog. Clive Owen is okay, most of the time convincing as the criminal mastermind, although he spends most of the film wearing a mask. I'd say this film is harmless fun, not your usual Spike Lee fare, which goes to prove his versatility. There is a hint in the back-story at some heavy issues of the past, but it's nothing more than a macguffin that only achieves some slight significance in the resolution of the movie. There is a neat structural trickery in the use of flash-forward scenes, hinting toward the aftermath of the heist without giving away the real ending. It's used sparingly and cleverly. I can highly recommend this movie, it is never boring for a moment, what's more, I was enjoying it so much that as events were progressing toward the climax, I was wishing it would go on. And that's very rare for me in the movies nowadays.

Let me just lay all my cards on the table, so there are no surprises later in the review: "Inside Man" is frustratingly bad, Spike Lee was the wrong director for this, but I was able to walk away still a fan of Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, and Jodie Foster. This is a bizarre film, unnecessarily complicated, that assembles a top-notch cast, puts them into a tense situation with all the players in place, and then has nothing to do with them. It's like the writer forgot that you needed a third act; it's all rising action with no denouement.

Washington plays Det. Frazier, a hostage negotiator who acts, literally, as if this is his first case. He has the obligatory younger partner (Chiwetel Ejiofor, "Serenity") who exists so Frazier can explain his theories and the obligatory ESU commander who wants to go in and shoot everyone (Willem Dafoe, sadly underused). Owen plays the bank robber, about whom frustratingly nothing is known except what he said into the camera in the trailer. Finally, Foster plays some sort of player amongst the Powers That Be who walks into the mayor's office, demands an update, and is given "every possible courtesy", etc. She serves no purpose whatsoever, not even in a clichéd action movie type of way like Dafoe and Ejiofor. The performances are the only good part of the movie, but there are times when you can tell that the actors wished they were in a better film. They're giving it their all, and they're getting no help from anyone else involved.

Spike Lee is up to his usual tricks here, which, in this type of movie, is a very bad thing. The details of the heist itself I won't disclose. I can't. The action is, at best, vague - extremely brief scenes of vaults opening, hole-digging, hostage roughing up, and the usual bank-robber stuff are all the details we really get. It is also inter cut with scenes of the hostages recalling the heist; their recollections serve no purpose except to confuse the audience further. "Inside Man" is curiously racist: the white crooks rough up the black bank customers, the white Foster and the mayor order around Washington, the white cops mistake a Sikh for an Arab and beat him, and even a Jewish hostage was not only a lawyer, but has a nephew who is a jeweler. Washington and Ejiofor are given no flaws whatsoever and are seen mostly being pushed around by everyone else in the movie. The action repeatedly grinds to a halt so Lee can insert quirky little subplots involving video games, Washington's much younger girlfriend and random Albanian women. They're at best unnecessary, at worst, disastrous. If we had been given a director with more focus, there is the feeling that this could have been a lean, mean thriller. But it drags and drags and drags and when we get to the end, we understand why the film stalled for so long: the ending is about as climatic as erectile dysfunction.

"Inside Man" looked like it had it all - great cast, good concept, reputable director, but the end result is a near-disaster. It's like someone threw "Dog Day Afternoon" into a blender, drank it, and vomited it back onto the screen. As I stumbled out of the theater, deprived of my money and time, I cursed the screen gods who thought to tease me with such an improbably bad movie. I thought back to a better day, when a movie at least knew what was going on even if the audience didn't, gave us characters who seemed like actual people and served actual purposes to the plot, so that even if we had to wait until the Big Twist to answer our questions, we at least had a reason to still care.

A pleasure from start to finish. An older Denzel Washington has begun to emerge, and his performance here suggests he has many good years left. Clive Owen is terrific as the mastermind. He, and the plot, keeps you guessing. And while there are plenty of clues, they are so well incorporated that very few viewers will see how this one comes together in the end.

One major quibble: Jodie Foster's character is more archetype than person so it's to her credit that she pulls it off as well as it does. However, don't let that deter you from enjoying one of the best movies of the year. I'm glad to see Spike Lee tackle another genre film. He brings a re-invigorating approach to what, in other hands, would be a tiresome rehash. That liveliness seems to have worked on him, too -- this is his best film in several years.

An ordinary day in a major bank, a man dressed as a painter walks in and points torches at the CCTV cameras. Seconds later more people dressed as painters burst in and announce their intentions to all inside. As the hostages are professionally moved into a group and made to dress in the same suits as the robbers, the alarm is raised by a passing cop. For Detective Frazier this is just what he needs to help take his mind off accusations of corruption and girlfriend stress. With a by-the-book hostage situation in front of him things look good but internal and external pressures soon convince him that things are not as straightforward as he first thought.

With the trailer offering a great Saturday night, twisty crime thriller, a heavy cast and a strange directorial choice in Lee, this was a film I was hoping would be glossy, slick, silly and fun. However, although I enjoyed it for what it was, I must confess that the lack of consistent direction and pace made it more difficult to get into than I had hoped. It isn't like this at first, with the film jumping right into a very slick taking of the bank and establishing a professional group of thieves to content with. Bringing in Frazier continues this delivery because he has a good swagger to him and it looked like they would pull off this film. You see, things like this need pace and energy and direction – like sharks, they need to keep moving forward or they die; they die by letting the audience question things or move back off the edge of their seat to a vantage point of criticism. With things like Phone Booth, we were never allowed to step back and thus it worked; however here it tries to do other things (to its credit) but these produce an irregular pace, inconsistent tone and tend to take away from the central, gripping action without putting in more than they take out.

It still works but it steps away from the robbery too often to touch on other areas. Now these areas could have been a great compliment to the main thread but they don't work as well as they should. The external pressures from Madeline White should have increased the tension in the film but instead they were mostly separate – interesting still but not complimentary. It doesn't help that many of the twists are obvious (certainly the reason for the robbery was obvious – even if it is never actually explained or justified that well) and when the final one does come it is delivered too slowly and reduces its impact. The film is funny and this works quite nicely without slowing things down. The device of the interviews as jumps forward is interesting but unfortunately it tells the audience too much and spoils some of the later action by making it too predictable. Like I said, I still enjoyed it but at times I found myself bothered by the impression that it was a genre movie actively trying not to be a genre movie and only hurting itself in the progress.

Visually the film is impressive even if occasionally it felt inappropriate for the material. The movement of the camera, the lush shots of New York, the "chest-cam" shots and the use of music are all unmistakably Spike Lee and it looks great for it. At times it is a bit obtrusive and almost feels too grand for the material but it is hard to criticise a great director (which is what I personally think Lee is) for having his own style and feel, even if at times he is a fault for reducing the pace and energy of the material. He shows that, although his personal films are more interesting, he can do a good job as director-for-hire as well. The cast are impressive on paper but the delivery means they are not all that good. Foster is a good example, she is a solid presence but her material is weak and half-done and I personally felt she could have been totally removed from the film without any great detriment. Washington is cool in the lead and gives a lively genre performance. The film suggests that he thought he was doing more than just a genre film and there are bits of his character that don't work – his eclectic wardrobe is one but his past and his girlfriend are also threads that don't work that well. Owen is lucky enough to have the best material and despite a so-so accent he does convince and drives the film forward. His motivations and background are annoying question marks but this is not his fault – it is the fault of the delivery that let me question things rather than rushing forward at full speed. Ejiofor is good and works well despite having little to work with. Dafoe is a nice addition but I did feel his material could have been done by someone less famous just as well as he did. Plummer starts the film with such an air of a "powerful old man with sinister secret" that you never doubt for second where the film is taking him – again not all his fault but he is not used at all well.

Despite all my misgivings, the film did do enough to engage me and entertain me on a Saturday night as I suspect it will many viewers. However in the cold light of day the film does have threads that don't work and problems relating to pacing and inconsistency in tone. Funnily enough it is actually the irregular pace that reveals the problems whereas it is had played itself as a straight genre film then it would have covered these with pace and energy. Worth seeing but by not being a straight genre film it manages to be both stronger and weaker at the same time.

This is a decent but not particularly memorable movie. I thought that Denzel Washington was pretty good, but he seems to have settled into a type. Confident and unyielding and always right (Coach Boone from Remember the Titans). This is fine and I enjoy watching him. This movie is about a bank robbery where the perpetrators are after more than money. It has to do with a righteous cause, but what happens is that the possibility of pulling it off and getting what they want is on such fragile ground that you need to ask the question, "Isn't there an easier way?" Anyway, the scenes in the bank are quite good but we really need to extend our disbelief at times. I've always wondered about that "get me a plane and a million dollars" business anyway. Well, there's a lot more to it than that. See this and enjoy the characters, but in the long run, it's pretty far fetched.