Enjoyable, but it drags in places

Rating: 6/10 (28 April 2018)

Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) is a master criminal who has spent an awful lot of time preparing and planning the ultimate heist - his target is a large bank in Manhattan. Attempting to thwart his plans are disgraced hostage negotiator Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and broker Madeleine White (Jodie Foster) who is acting on behalf of the bank's CEO Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer).
Spike Lee's Inside Man is certainly intense and energetic in its early stages; when the gang enter the bank and take their hostages the film has a high level of tension and intensity - the elaborate lengths that they go to in order to stay one step ahead of the police are also quite clever.
Where the film falters slightly are on occasions where the focus shifts away from the bank and on to other characters; whilst I could understand why Jodie Foster was in the film and what her character was all about I didn't feel that she made any real contribution and that she had any real impact on the film itself. It also has to be said that her character and story arc were undoubtedly the weakest aspect of the film and did drag it down slightly. Whilst I liked the idea of the film cutting between the heist and interviewing several people 'after the event' it all feels a bit disappointing when in the end it all serves very little purpose.
Still going back to the positives, the film does have one or two twists along the way (although for every good twist there is another which is more obvious) and the acting is pretty good by everyone. It is pacey and energetic enough to make it worth watching, but it lacks the tight and fluid direction of a film like Dog Day Afternoon which is a film that it clearly aspires to be like (it is even referenced directly at one point in the film). The actual story behind the 'heist' is actually the strongest part of the film (it is certainly better than many of the gimmicky twists) and isn't as generic or obvious as one may initially assume. I also found it hard to really hate a film where boobs actually form part of the story (both Kim Director and Samantha Ivers assets were the focus of the film on a couple of occasions which was perfectly fine with me).
Inside Man is a decent film and is worth watching, but it lacks tight direction and unfortunately it does drag in places. If you enjoyed this film then I would recommend that you watch Dog Day Afternoon which is a similar but much better film than this one.