Enjoyable, though minor

Rating: Null/10 (7 April 2006)

Extremely well-cast, with Clive Owen and Jodie Foster in particular shining here. Has a great sense of NYC's place, with some superb and interesting location shooting. Great soundtrack. Good little bits are sprinkled throughout: the Albanian floozie, the bit about what Grand Central Station really is, the moment with Owen and the kid playing video games.
The spine of this is the caper story, though. It has it's moments: for once I liked the final twist, and it's tightly shot and effectively presented. Unfortunately in the end it seemed to me to be a whole hell of a lot about not much -- the basic plot here could almost be one of those dreadful CBS television movies, complete with a little moralistic ending. And that's a problem, too -- this thing just doesn't know how to end. I counted at least four false endings before it's finally put out of it's misery.
That doesn't make it bad, by any means, and I would really like to see Lee try his hand again at this genre -- I think he has a natural flair for the crime genre. But it does seem to me to be the definition of "work for hire": it's a superb craftsmanlike job on pretty mediocre material, and can only be lifted up so far.
If Lee can find a better script next time, I'd really like to see what he can do.