Worst Jodie Foster film I've Seen

Rating: 3/10 (27 January 2007)

I watched this film as a Foster "completist" and was hugely disappointed, not by Foster per se, but by this clunking effort. The premise of the film - a bank heist that goes wrong with more to it than meets the eye - was promising. The execution was woeful.
Denzel Washington is the lead character playing a flawed cop who is pressed into dealing with a heist, and the hostage consequence. Initially, I thought that Washington was simply playing an incompetent cop well. Then it dawned on me that there were some more fundamental incompetence issues.
The musical score appears to have come from another film, it is so unsympathetically matched. Foster's appearance is at best a character part, at worst a cameo, and her role is a simplistic plotting device.
The plot stretches suspension of disbelief to such absurd levels that as a viewer you feel stupid at the end for giving the Director the benefit of the doubt. A banal script gives the high quality roster of actors precious little room for manoeuvre and the direction is painfully slow.
Frustratingly, the storyline has good dramatic potential. But this is squandered in spectacular style as the film limps through its two and a bit hours running time. This is the first Spike Lee film I have ever seen. I shall be consciously avoiding his previous efforts.
I note that other posters have been much more positive and enthusiastic about this movie. It is rare that I am able to take such a diametrically opposed view with such confidence.