Excellent movie, among Lee's best in many ways.

Rating: 9/10 (4 April 2006)

It was promoted as a straight-forward, slick-as-can-be bank heist movie in the trailers (and it is that) but it also ranges over themes that are much more serious and very unexpected. Even though I knew there was "more to this one" from vague comments I'd heard in the press, opening paragraphs of reviews I avoided reading, etc., I still didn't expect where it was going at all. The script is tighter than a drum and motivations of all major characters are both deep and well drawn and thus always believable. As an excercise in scripting, it's really one of the more remarkable pieces I've watched or read in a long time. Lee is easily up to the task and manages to make the movie both the slick, clever and exciting heist thriller you were hoping for as well as a movie with real depth and heart far beyond what would normally be expected from the genre. The movie doesn't look very much like a typical Spike Lee movie, though there are the occasional graces that remind you of who is calling the shots. Every actor in the film hits the perfect note for their roles, even the minor players who have few lines and brief scenes. One of my favorite small roles is a construction worker who briefly helps the cops with some information they need that could be key to helping deal with the robbers (this isn't a spoiler). Just how the guy swaggers over to the cops' mobile command vehicle was so perfectly pitched, so true to life as that of a proud New York working-man, I knew instantly who this guy was because I'd met him a hundred times on the streets here. It's that kind of attention to detail that helps make this story really live on the screen. It's an incredibly impressive movie.