good thriller, but was this a Spike Lee film?

Rating: 7/10 (24 September 2006)

'Inside Man' is a good thriller movie. It has a different idea, and what starts like your usual bank robbery film turns into a more sophisticated action film that you would have expected. You keep asking yourself together with most of the characters what the thieves are after, and they plan to get out of the hostages situation in the mid of Manhattan, and when it happens it all makes sense.
It is also well acted. Denzel Washington and Clive Owen are the main players in the cat and mouse game, while Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe and Cristopher Plummer give strong and key supporting roles.
Yet, I may ask, is this a Spike Lee movie? We are always used to Lee making something different or surprising, saying something that makes sense from a social or political point of view. Here he almost plays truthfully the role of conventional thriller director, the fact that the good detective is an Afro-American does not take it for a social comment for a long time, and from this perspective I was a little disappointed.