A Sidney Lumet film directed by Spike Lee

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2006)

Spike Lee's Sidney Lumet movie. After a gang of hoods take a bank full of people hostage, negotiator Denzel Washington slowly learns that they have no plans to rob the bank. Lee infuses the film with a lot of personality and the script develops even the most peripheral characters. As the head hostage taker, Clive Owen is suitably menacing and Washington is as good as he always is. The real surprise is Jodie Foster as a NYC power broker whose special talents are called upon mysterious bank president Christopher Plummer. Foster has never been sexier, wearing power suits and showing off a pair of gams that never end.
The movie is at least twenty minutes too long, has a few too many endings and a couple of loose ends --- WHY is Owen in that bank? Nonetheless, it's still a gripping, highly entertaining thriller.