Savvy and suspenseful heist flick!

Rating: 9/10 (30 June 2006)

I am not normally one for cops-and-robbers movies, but the impressive cast of "Inside Man" made me decide to give this movie a shot. I am really glad that I did. Spike Lee really shows his penchant for making an impressive heist flick, in addition to his already admirable body of work in other types of films. "Inside Man" was a sophisticated, fast-paced and smartly-told heist movie that really did justice to the genre. Denzel Washington played the lead role of the perceptive (if slightly jaded) police-detective Keith Frazier, to understated perfection. Denzel is a natural at this type of role, and it is a pure testament to his incredible acting ability that he manages to make it seem fresh every time. Watching him match wits with Dalton Russell (played "to a T" by the perfectly-cast Clive Owen), at every turn kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end. Owen deftly avoided turning his character into a one-dimensional thug, bringing such nuance to Russell that, by the end of the movie, we didn't want him to get caught just as much as we wanted Frazier to get his man. The rest of the cast only served to further enhance this movie, in particular, the inimitable Christopher Plummer, who brought a sort of iconic quality to the sinister, villainous Arthur Case. As with all movies of this sort, some viewer suspension of disbelief was required, but to belabor those few instances would be mere nit-picking, given the overarching strengths of this movie. "Inside Man" gave the viewer a candid look of the inner workings of the minds on both sides of the heist puzzle without resorting to cheap or obvious plot devices, putting this movie a cut above the fray of would-be bank robbery movies. Of course, it would not be a "Spike Lee joint" without some sort of socio-political message, which came in the form of the Holocaust sub-plot within the movie. But, rather than making this the main focus (which would have been another type of movie altogether), Lee used the Holocaust undertones to provide some "back-story" for the characters (an element which is usually sadly lacking in heist movies), and to raise the stakes of the cat-and-mouse game. "Inside Man" easily made its mark as one of the more intelligent, contemporary heist flicks to grace the cineplexes in a long while. If you're a criminal-suspense aficionado, you'll love it; and if you aren't, you will be by the end of this movie! Highly recommended.