Spike had me at hello and lost me at goodbye, as usual

Rating: 5/10 (21 April 2006)

The movie opens with Dalton Russel's alert announcement that sets the mood for a smart action-thriller, completely atypical for Spike Lee's films. Spike usually makes meticulous constructed insights into the human mind and social habits(usually afro-American), and not action-thrillers, like this. In fact the movie opens as such, and gradually returns to the roots of Spike's cinematic vision, the human study, only this time more multi-racial in approach, with some new camera moves he picked up. The subject is simple, disguised as complex: a gang of bank-robbers takes over the bank of Arthur Case( Plummer), and holds everybody hostage, as they wait, and wait, and wait, because it's not the money they are after. The Police sends a negotiator(Washington), with a questionable past, and somewhere in there you'll recognize versatile actor Willem Dafoe playing a diluted character ,who adds nothing to the story, and Jodie Foster, who plays a mystery-lady, rich guy's problem solving extraordinaire, also diluted. It becomes clear that billionaire Case has a secret hidden in the Bank. This is where the pace of the movie slows down, and also until it's entertaining. What it is, everybody can easily guess-Case has a Nazi past. Well, really original, keeping those 'dear reminders' from the past in a simple deposit box, big-shot that he is. So the robbers stay in there for hours waiting for what, to finally come out disguised as hostages??? And they stop the cameras, but there's also previous footage, and Police could identify everybody in the Bank prior to the attack. Finally our sense of justice is gratified(and this is where it becomes lame), and the evil, evil billionaire will face retribution-Bad, bad Nazi! Not remotely as smart as it advertises, it falls flat on the nose, as the 'smart' guys turn out to be plain, and the script a draft. Not to mention the cheap preaching.