Would have been better if someone else had made it.

Rating: 7/10 (26 March 2006)

Unfortunately, everything in this movie that is not part of the actual heist is unnecessary and cheesy. Namely, Christopher Plummer as the rich evil white man, the completely extraneous characters and scenes (I'm thinking of Denzel Washington's girlfriend, the young boy with the violent video game). And of course, Denzel Washington's stupid hat.
Not that it is unnecessary in a heist or thriller type movie to portray the human sides of all the characters. But if you're going to do it, don't make them caricatures, especially Jodie Foster's character. Rather than being convinced to think about the personalities and inner workings of some of the characters, the only effect achieved by Lee here is irony and eye rolling.
And not to mention that Spike Lee can't seem to make a movie these days without sticking a fairly heavy handed message into it. Video games featuring gang violence are bad. Okay. Chris Plummer was into shady business practice and should be held accountable. Alright. What does that have to do with anything in this movie? I thought maybe this time Spike Lee was taking on a different genre and thus would spare us the preaching, but I was amazed that he managed to tack on messages even in a movie where there is no conceivable reason for it to be there.
That said, the movie is very entertaining. Clive Owen is genius in this role. As a heist movie, the movie is solid. The actual plot is surprisingly realistic for a movie that claims through Clive Owen to offer the plan for the perfect bank robbery. The cinematography is one the strongest points of the film. The shots of the police work offer a lot of shaky, hand-held shots for a pretty rough look speaking to the chaos that occurs outside the bank, whereas inside the shots are smooth and controlled, suggesting the control the robbers have over the situation. The editing and switching between timelines does a great job of keeping the audience guessing at what even happened in the bank, making the visual portrayal of the movie excellent.
Pretty funny, although it seemed at times the humor was misplaced, and just as with the much of the rest of the script, you may wonder what the hell you're supposed to be watching.
Overall: Good camera work with pretty good performances and good plot make for a very interesting and entertaining heist, but script as a whole is cheesy and sophomoric and nothing besides the heist is worth paying attention to. Would do well to be stripped down to bare bones of the script and remade with a different director.