Never exhilarating , yet constantly engrossing

Rating: 6/10 (1 May 2006)

Inside Man is one of the cleverest, classiest Hollywood movies in a long time, yet it never really get's terribly exciting, nor terribly bad. It seems for the most part to be a damn good, damn interesting entertainment. Most of the reasons, for those who's like to know, come from the fact that it's directed by Spike Lee, a man not completely at home with doing Hollywood mainstream pictures. As a result nothing is really as it seems in Inside Man, nor really does the film know what it is. Is it a thriller? Is it a drama? Is it a racial/political dissection of society today (a subject it bizarrely delves into)? In fact Inside Man is rare breed of cross-genre cinema. Still with us? OK.
When a group organised robbers (led by Clive Owen's Dalton Russel) attempt to take over the New York trust bank, inexperienced detectives Frazier (Washington) and Mitchell (Britain's Chewiel Ejoifor) are sent to try and relieve the situation. Soon there's more to the robbery than it seems, as bank owner Christopher Plummer (the captain from The Sound of Music) discovers the robbers may be after one of his gems locked deep in that very bank. So he hires the suitably deceitful Madeline White (Foster) to sort things out.
Yet as the plot twists and turns, nothing really happens to make the heart leap a beat. The excitement level remains pretty constant and although we have flashbacks, flash-forwards and even some flash-bang grenades, it's seems so clever it can't really get off the ground. However there's much to take away from Inside Man. The performances on the whole are spot on  Clive Owen  a particularly changeable actor (great in Closer, rubbish in King Arthur) particularly underplays his part to perfection. Jodie Foster is also superb as the mighty Manhattan bitch who's back-room deals and subtle conniving tries to outwit the brains of the aforementioned Owen. Denzel Washington, while never going lengths to add anything to his part, is also fine as the NYPD man making sense of the situation.
The plot, featuring everything from Albanians, boob sizes to Nazis (yes, Nazis) is clever to a certain point, but starts to lose much of the groundwork it made towards the end. It rollicks its way through the first hour and a half before screenwriter Russell Gewirtz seems to have made a hash of a potentially great conclusion (e.g. what happened to Willem Dafoe?). And yet it seems Spike Lee maybe trying to make a point, be it political or ethical through Inside Man. He frequently points out stereotypical racism (arabs are terrorists, etc) or even that there's more to life than money (Washington's Frazier says from the start that the robbers don't want cash  "Who ever heard of a bank robbers escaping on a plane with fifty hostages? This ain't no bank robbery!"). If there was a subplot to be found it's dissolved by the cluster of events in the story. Owen points out at the start "pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and never repeat myself" and that's exactly what you've got to do. The events go so quickly that you'll be forgiven for losing track early on. However, if you do keep track 'til the end Inside Man is a rewarding, if bewildering experience.