Quality pot-boiler with grade A stars -- but certainly not a keeper.

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2007)

A gang of thieves take over a New York bank - but maybe there is more to it than a simple robbery-turned-hostage situation? When you get to a certain age you think you have seen all the movies that have been made or ever will be made. All you have left to look forward to is massive surprises (and very welcome they are too!) and movies that are bits and pieces of other (good) movies glued together.
This is a very slick product with modern cinematography - the type is part TV advert and part professional clever-dicking: Arty shots for no real reason other than to show-off.
Not the kind of material that I normally associate with Spike Lee (there is a back story if you want to search it out) but he gets us through it without ever stopping or running out of ideas. Not that a hundred directors couldn't have done it just as well.
Get this for a cast: Denzel Washington (call-the-shots big city cop), Clive Owen (too good looking for his own good as a young man - now getting more interesting with age. Here a pro thief), Jodie Foster (not playing a goody-two-shoes character for once - won't spoil it), Christopher Plummer (a standard Mr Big) and William Dafoe (wasted as a police coordinator). Thankfully they are rarely on screen at the same time - probably because they would be too many arguments about who is getting blocked correctly and who has the individual spot on them.
I have a problem with Denzel W - he is a very good actor that doesn't take on enough challenging parts. He has fallen in to the Sidney Poitier trap of thinking that he should be representing his race in nearly every movie (yes -- irony that he won an Oscar for the time he didn't) or else doing those walk-through parts that keeps his bank manager happy. Here he is good, but nothing special. I want to give him special praise for his command of the English language though - even though he doesn't display it here. He should come to London and do Shakespeare.
I counted myself entertained and satisfied at the end of the two hours. Too superficial to watch more than once though.