Underrated Heist-Hostage Movie That Puts Most Other Heist Movies To Shame -- Keeps You Guessing all the Way

Rating: 10/10 (14 October 2010)

Late in the film, Jodie Foster as Ms. White says an interesting line: "When there's blood on the streets, go buy property." At first the line just seems like an innocent little anecdote, meant as a kind of joke. But then I realized it may sum up the premise of the film. Unlike many of her other roles, Foster plays the equivalent of Mr Wolfe from "Pulp Fiction", hired by the upper-crust to "clean up" their little public relations problems. (At one point she claims her next job is to help Bin Lauden's nephew.) Although Foster is essentially a supporting character, I bring her up because her non-typical casting is a lot of what this movie is about or isn't about. It's about everything being upside down.
At first glance, this is a movie about a bank robbery and hostage crisis, right? Or is it? The brilliant screenplay by Russell Gewirtz coupled with the outstanding direction of Spike Lee create constant miss-direction--about things not being as they seem. A lot of what seems very straight-forward are in fact illusions. But there are hints throughout the movie regarding the motives and the goals of the robbers. But even if you can't put it all together before all is revealed at the end, the final denouement is a stunning twist that makes most other heist movies seem more like mere cops and robbers B-movies. This is a highly compelling and very different take on the genre.
The film begins with a brief monologue by an unknown person who says he "chooses his words carefully" and never repeats himself. He speaks from a confined area that is not exactly a prison. The movie then takes off with a compelling heist at a bank in lower Manhattan. Denzel Washington plays Detective Keith Frazer who thinks he's in the middle of what seems a straight-forward bank-hostage situation. The siege is perpetrated by people claiming to be high-powered and highly-intelligent criminals, asking for buses and planes in exchange for the lives of the hostages. Their guns are AK47's. Frazer, Captain Darius (Willem Dafoe) and their team set up a stake-out on the periphery of the bank and begin negotiations with the head-honcho. But even from the start, the demands seem strange.
In a bit of a slight-of-hand, about one third through, the movie engages in what can only be described as "flash-forwards" (as opposed to flash-backs). We see Frazer and his partner Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) questioning former hostages as if among them were the criminals who created the situation. But with every interview, we begin to understand the authorities don't know who perpetrated the heist. And we also start to lose the sense of the "bad guys" and the "good guys". When each flash-forward ends, we return to the "present moment" of the hostage crisis. In an interesting little trick, we never see the interviews in the present moment but only as flash-forwards.
An absolutely mesmerizing film from start to finish with a twist at the end that might cause you to put into question all "bad guy vs good guy" films. The acting is first-rate with quite an interesting cast: Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen and Christoper Plummer. All the characters are on different sides with completely different interests and agenda. One of the enjoyable aspects is to try and figure out the motives of each of the characters which may help in solving the "riddle". The ending is more reminiscent of an Agatha Christie book than a James Patterson novel. This movie appears to have been a little overlooked by audiences during its initial release, which is a shame as it is one of the highest-quality movies of its genre.