A suspension of challenging approach for both talent and story

Rating: 3/10 (5 March 2013)

Suspension of disbelief is your classic benevolent no prejudices first contact with a movie. That is what a good director can expect to build up a story even from a mediocre script. Or an average director can get away with it if he has a good story to start with.
Inside Man got a very fine casting. Does that make a great cast? Well there is a tipping point in the movie where sheer stature and charisma can no longer make up for the weak characterisation. A nice cop (Denzel Washington), a (marginally) violent yet clean and sharp heist mastermind (Clive Owen) and a bunch of stock supporting characters (Jodie Foster as the ambiguous bitching lawyer type, Christopher Plummer as the polished evil grey-suited - but quite clumsy - über-class banker, etc.) doesn't really make a great cast.
Now if there was a great story, no one would mind enjoying these cartoonish characters. But the story is far from pop-corn cartoonish, it really takes itself seriously. Suspension of disbelief: low battery.
And Spike Lee does take himself seriously. Let's say he is only a bit over the hedge with the in-your-face statement by Clive Owen at the beginning. It sets the bar high, without being really clever, but OK... Now, all the over-hanging shots and the ridiculous trolley-shot at the end really make it a big fat failure in directing vista.
Well a director must be short-sighted to take so seriously (I mean deep dork serious) this screenplay. Lots of reviewers have pointed out the flaws: again it is not the (big) flaws that count but the impotence at channelling suspension of disbelief into something that hangs OK.
In the end, cinematically challenged audiences will only see it as a clever story with great actors, and actually no talent ever got harmed during the shooting. Nothing got properly challenged as to get the best from everyone and every situation. They are happy they shot this in little more than a month. Good for them, but the result is a weak movie further crippled by its stance as a very clever heist machine.