Inside Man

So, off we go to Hollywood Bitch-Slap, but for a taste... Note the new 5-star system for consistency with HBS.

Inside Man
Seen March 26, 2006; AMC Boston Common
* * * * (out of five)

Apparently, Spike Lee isn’t all style. And he’s not just controversy. He can do all that, and make a damn fun movie, too.

Inside Man is one hell of a change for Lee. It’s his most expensive film to date, with a bottom line of roughly $45 million, and it really, really shows. The film has a more polished look than 25th Hour, and even that wasn’t too shabby. He again has the benefit of a giant cast of brilliant character actors to make his film very pleasing to watch – Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster topline, and they are backed up by Willem Dafoe, Christopher Plummer and Chiwetel Ejiofor. With those names on the top, I was already interested.

Denzel is Keith Frazier, a detective for NYPD who is in hot water because $140,000 disappeared from a case he was working on. But the head detective is out on this particular day, so when word comes in that a major bank is being robbed, the job falls to Frazier and his partner (Ejiofor). At the scene, they meet the officer in charge of the tactical operation (Dafoe) and figure out pretty immediately that this isn’t going to be a typical bank robbery (if there is such a thing). Within the first half hour we meet the perp, Dalton Russell (Owen), who isn’t shy in telling us that he’s planned the perfect heist. We also meet Madeline White (Foster), a person of questionable morality working for the bank’s owner (Plummer) to protect certain interests at this particular branch. Whew! All of this revolves around a safety deposit box that everyone seems interested in, but the audience is left in the cold with Frazier to figure things out as they happen.

That’s what hooked me about Inside Man. It’s a police thriller, sure, but to a certain extent it’s a mystery. And it’s not even hiding anything from the audience. Lee shows actions inside and outside the bank, conversations between Foster and Plummer; everything proceeds normally, but the audience is left without a single answer. It’s a nice feeling to get to play along with the “hero” (we’ll get to whether or not Denzel deserves that title later) for once, and not be smacking your head against the seat while you watch him go do something you know to be stupid.

Read on at Hollywood Bitch-Slap!