smart, interesting, and entertaining

Rating: 9/10 (16 August 2006)

"Inside Man" tells the story of a bank robbery hostage situation that we've all seen done and done well many times before. However, the creators of "Inside Man" (the Inside Man, surely?) know this, and as a result Spike Lee's take on the heist movie has a few tricks up its sleeve.
The minute Dalton (Clive Owen) introduces the movie you know something's different, and his distant yet smug tone draws you in to his perfect crime. It's a role Clive plays well: he is smart but dark, violent and aggressive yet ironically emerges as the film's moral centre, evident by not only in his motive for the robbery, but in the prejudiced attitudes of everybody else. The attitudes, actions, and assumptions made by civilians and NYPD alike (especially when Vikram, the Sikh teller, is released from the bank to cries of "Is it a bomb?") demonstrate the many small injustices that occur everyday, and these incidents shock the audience more than the larger scale injustice taking place in the form of a bank robbery just metres away.
While the bank job is Clive's machine, most of the acting falls into Denzel Washington's lap, and he performs well as the cop trying to juggle the immense responsibility of hostage negotiation with his personal concerns. Jodie Foster also performs well as the prissy...whatever it is that she does.
The plot thickens and unfolds until it would seem that no crime has taken place. Denzel is eventually told to "bury it", and unfortunately the final half hour of the film suffers a similar fate as the plot disappears under an avalanche of over-morality in the meeting between Foster and the bank owner (Christopher Plummer). Earlier in the film Denzel asks a cop to cut down on the "colour commentary" during a story, and you can't help but wonder why Spike didn't take this advice as the audience are provided with the tale of an old rich white man and his blood money while Denzel pursues his case till its closure and the film to its end. This is however all forgiven thanks to the very last minute of the film as Denzel cheekily grins at the screen, having worked it all out and come out on top.
Moralizing aside, this is a smart, well-acted and entertaining film that is thoroughly enjoyable and well worth a look.