"We never leave until the job is done."

Rating: 8/10 (28 March 2006)

As an action adventure, Spike Lee's "Inside Man" delivers the goods with a mysterious bank heist that has more at it's center than meets the eye. You realize there's something a bit different about Clive Owen's character Dalton, allowing hostages to go free at points in the film when it serves his unique purpose. For his part, Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) comes across a few dots that refuse to connect, and can't get over the feeling that this is a bank heist that's not a bank heist.
For me, the mark of a good actor or actress is how they make you feel about the character they're portraying. In that regard, I was fairly repulsed by the smarmy brashness and curt innuendo of Jody Foster's Madeline White character. Her performance was masterful as a behind the scenes power broker, known by reputation and called personally by the president of the bank under siege. She can read between the lines as well as anyone, and you don't quite believe it when she says she won't do anything illegal to earn her payday.
It occurred to me as I did the math that we're quickly coming to a time when real time stories with themes from World War II are nearly at an end. Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) would have to be about eighty five for his character to make sense, so one wonders why he might have kept the reminders of his Nazi connections in a safe deposit box of his bank for over sixty years. Of course without it there's no story, so an appropriate grain of salt is necessary here.
"Inside Man" is the kind of film that begs for a repeat viewing that allows one to now concentrate on the character relationships that the first time might have seemed unimportant or unconnected. In particular, there are some head scratching scenes offered that seem to suggest "what might happen" if the police storm the bank, with one shot zeroing in on a blood splattered lock box 392. At that point in time, detective Frazier still didn't know what was at the core of the caper.
I've read some of the posts that take the movie to task for lack of back story and the unknown background and motivation of the Owens and Foster characters. I can live with that in a film that already takes a couple of hours to tell it's story. The action is intense when it needs to be, and demands your attention to keep up with key elements. The film winds up being just clever enough to be exciting and entertaining, and there are times when that's good enough for me.