Doesn't live up to its promise

Rating: 6/10 (3 August 2014)

The concept is good - it's a daring bank robbery with an original twist. And the cast is packed full of big name performers. But somehow this movie didn't deliver on its promise for me.
After the initial break-in and hostage-taking by Clive Owen as Dalton Russell and his band of well-drilled co-conspirators, the plot kind of grinds to a halt and starts heading down all sort of random cul-de-sacs. I think the point is to keep you guessing as to the motives of the robbers and how they will escape - but to me it just felt fragmented and sapped the tension out of the movie. The worst of these subplots involves Jodie Foster acting as Madelaine White, an unconvincing go-between on behalf of the bank's owner who wants to recover some incriminating documents from his own safety deposit box. When White finally gets into the bank building, she simply has a short dialogue with Russell and heads straight out again. Thrilling stuff - not.
I'd have preferred Inside Man to be a straight up cop vs bad guy battle of wits between Denzel Washington's character Detective Frazier and Dalton Russell. This is the main thrust of the plot in any case and where the movie is at its strongest, for example Russell outwitting Frazier by playing a tape in Armenian to make him think the robbers were from the Caucasus, or the excellent 'flash forward' scenes where Frazier interviews the 'hostages' to try and find out which of them were accomplices to Russell.
All in all this movie has enough going for it to make it enjoyable viewing. But not a favourite of mine.