What more could a motion picture ask for? A palatable plot line, for starters.

Rating: 5/10 (5 May 2006)

Heist, dangerous weaponry and a venomous woman. What more could a motion picture ask for? A palatable plot line, for starters.
Dalton Russell (Clive Owen, Derailed) wants to pull off the quintessential bank robbery--no, the perfect bank robbery. The scene is set in downtown New York's Manhattan Trust; Russell's gang waits for the perfect opportunity, when the bank is chock-full of hostages and the crew can slip in under the guise of paint workers. In typical Hollywood fashion, a uniformed police officer suddenly appears out of nowhere (poof!), casually strolling by the bank. As he peers in, he is greeted by the barrel of Russell's gun, which sets the stage for the rest of the two (feels like hundred) hours and nine minutes.
Cops then surround the bank, led by Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington, Man on Fire), an ambitious fellow who has a checkered past stemming from a drug bust with missing loot. His sidekick, Detective Bill Mitchell played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (Four Brothers), acts as a springboard for Frazier, which provides some sniping comic relief.
The story slogs ahead, merely passing with time. There is a lot of activity inside the bank, but nothing really happens within its formulaic plot scene and structure that one hasn't come to expect. To try and pick up the sagging middle, Detective Frazier challenges Russell, and, for a minute, adrenaline starts to resuscitate the character-driven storyline. Unfortunately, the plot device turns out to be little more than a trap door that leads to a garden-variety of nothingness.
Clive Owen, as Dalton Russell, manages to keep his cool throughout the movie, even though no clear motive is ever offered on his behalf. The obvious choice would be money, but even that remains largely unaddressed by the end of the film.
Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer, The Insider) delivers in his sinister role as the owner of the bank. He gets wind of the robbery and calls in glammed-up, corporate-shark Madeline White (Jodie Foster, Flightplan), an attorney with a set of brass ones--both on top and on bottom. Foster's character is svelte and polished, which she hasn't been on the big screen for quite some time. Of course, given her talent, she still manages to instinctively pull off the role of a "bad guy" as if she was born into it.
Inside Man has the signature of a Spike Lee Joint (25th Hour) written all over it. Lee addresses some racial stereotypes, and the tricked-out camera zooms (with the help of cinematographer Matthew Libatique, Requiem for a Dream) are practically a fingerprint for the accomplished director. Denzel Washington fans won't be disappointed either, even though this movie doesn't stretch his acting abilities in the same way that Training Day, Malcolm X or Man on Fire did. It just doesn't have that kind of intensity, and even the all-star cast is not enough to patch up the holes in this sinking ship.
Furthermore, if you're a connoisseur of a solid heist movie structure that delivers on queue with a few twists and turns behind door number three, you might want to stay outside, man.