Nothing Is As It Appears

Rating: 7/10 (20 March 2009)

Spike Lee has taken an extremely talented cast and turned the film and the story inside out leaving the viewer guessing all along the way. This is Lee's attempt at taking a suspense movie & making it into a nearly meaningless exercise. In fact a lot of what he does works as the film is definitely unpredictable.
What I noticed upon viewing this film is the fact that as the film tells the story, it shows interviews with hostages that break into the s by the main suspect. story but are obviously timed for after the robbery is over. There are about 30 minutes of deleted scenes which don't really help put it together any better either on the DVD.
Denzell Washington is good in his role as the detective who is a negotiator, and is trying to settle the whole situation without deaths. What is interesting is that he realizes the person he is negotiating with is blowing smoke at him. He does not realize until it is much too late how he is gamed.
While Spike Lee has done better work, this one holds up as really good suspense that has a mystery wrapped inside a some things which don't make any sense. It's a robbery within a hostage situation but it is not anything that appears as it should.