Kind of grows on you

Rating: 10/10 (3 May 2006)

It was kind of hard for me to like and appreciate this movie to begin with. I wasn't impressed by the previews and I was dragged to see this movie. After it was over, I thought it was a bit... like, not all there, kind of boring.
After some weeks passed, with a few moments of reflecting on the movie, I realize it was a pretty good movie.
Problems first: The only big problem I had with it was the "Crash"-style blatant, pretentious racism, out to shock the audience.
The rest of the movie was entertaining, and the "bad guys"'s plot was very clever. It had lots of very funny, slightly mean jokes in it and a lot of situations which make you laugh because it's a "duh!" situation. Or something. I'm crazy.
I purposely use "quotes" around the term bad guys (referring to the "bank robbers") because they really aren't bad, or out to hurt anyone or anything. Their plot was absolutely ingenious and would actually work in real life---but without monetary gain.
Spoiler alert!: Their plot was really complex and very well done: They (Clive Owen's character and the gang) enter the bank disguised as painters, their faces hidden, use a high-tech device disguised as a flashlight to shut down the security cameras, then hold the bank hostage. They take all the hostages down to the bank vaults, have everyone dress in identical blue outfits with white ski-mask cloth things (you see in the previews) covering their faces and sunglasses over their eyes. The "bank robbers" then dress the same way. The people are divided and put into various little offices, and told to sit down and shut up. They're all whimpering and sobbing and such, and at random intervals, the "bank robbers" come in, take a few people out, and put them in another room, and switch people around. What they're also doing, is pretending to be one of the hostages, putting each other into the rooms at random intervals and whimpering and making noise like everyone else. That way, everyone thinks the "bank robbers" infiltrating them are innocent people. The "bank robbers" make outrageous demands to the police and make it very hard on them by demanding things and being very inflexible and uncooperative. At random moments, they push out one hostage for the police to apprehend, and because they are dressed just like the robbers, ALL the hostages are suspect! At the very end, after finding what they were looking for, the "bank robbers" let everyone out the front door--and include themselves in the bunch (their guns were fake) and manage to escape scot-free because ALL the hostages are suspects, and all of them recognize each other as being among the hostages (since the "bad guys" mixed themselves in among the hostages) so EVERYONE is let go and the bank robbers are never found---they also take nothing from the bank, no money, no files, nothing. What they DID do, however, because they would recognize Clive Owen's character's voice, he stayed behind in the bank, hidden behind the wall in the storage closet, where he came out after the whole ordeal, took some diamonds hidden in the bank, and documents telling about the bank owner's (Christopher Plummer) dealings during World War II with the Nazis and the diamonds were diamonds he stole from Jewish families during the holocaust, and kept hidden away because he was overwrought with guilt, and wanted to keep it hidden away forever (and he hired Jodi Foster's character to get involved with the police and make sure they found out nothing about this. The police never see the file, so the "bank robbers" get away with it)
That was long, and probably unnecessary, but that's the movie's surprise twist ending and content involving the bank robbers. I'm too tired now to explain everything else. I'm too much into spoilers.