Summary Good acting, good plot, nicely shot and a film I have in the past and still could easily watch over and over.

Rating: 9/10 (13 September 2012)

There was no guarantee just because the cameras in the bank being robbed were disabled 2 minutes before the robbers in painters' overalls appeared that there were not plain-clothes robbers already amongst the customers. We know it, but the police hadn't seen this movie at the time...
The robbers kept the hostages in separate rooms and shifted them around leaving plenty of opportunities for them 2 switch roles from robber to hostage, therefore all the customers and bank staff on the pre-robbery video cannot be safely eliminated...plus however many people may have come into the bank in the period between the cameras being disabled and the doors being locked. Painters' overalls are baggy enough to hide most people's physical differences so the elimination of suspects on such a basis is far from full-proof.
The robbers didn't commit any outright crimes. They feigned two beatings to further integrate two of their number with the hostages. Kidnapping without ransom demands or an assault becomes illegal detention. The fact that the matter was allowed to slide by a ratings conscious Police Captain pressured by people able to have corruption charges dropped against one of his detectives and exert influence on his own career is credible to this viewer.
Questions which we didn't see asked such as who was reported missing, how people got to the bank, did they have an account there? etc...have too many variables and are questions that people engaged in such meticulous planning necessary to pull this type of robbery off should be prepared for. Is it credible that a policeman would steal, as Denzel's Detective character does? Life and history point to the affirmative, but because it's Denzel he didn't really steal the jewel, it was dropped into his pocket by a thief and belonged to a war criminal...fair cop?