Movie Review Inside Man

Inside Man (2006) 

Directed by Spike Lee 

Written by Russell Gewirtz

Starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer

Release Date March 24th, 2006 

Published March 23rd, 2006 

Spike Lee is unquestionably my favorite director and, in my opinion, the finest filmmaker working today. His films focus on important topics--sometimes directly, sometimes esoterically. His latest film, however, is not his usual timely topical drama. In Inside Man Spike Lee crafts his first mainstream thriller and despite its lack of relevance, Inside Man is Spike Lee at his usually crafty and skillful best.

On a typical day in New York City an indistinct truck from a painting company pulls up in front of First Manhattan Bank. A group of people in masks jump out, gather their equipment and head inside the bank. We already know they are not here to paint anything. These 'painters' are part of what we are told is the 'the perfect bank robbery.'

Clive Owen stars as Dalton Russell. He is the leader of this group of bank robbers in the new thriller Inside Man and he is the only robber we will get to know throughout the film. His accomplices are innumerable and so well hidden you will have a hard time keeping track of how many of them there are. One or two of them strip off the painting gear and mingle with the crowd and because their looks are so indistinct, they easily slip into the crowd of bank customers who are now hostages.

Opposite Russell and his cohorts is a clever detective and hostage negotiator named Keith Frazier, played by Denzel Washington. In a few quick, establishing scenes we find that Detective Frazier is under investigation by internal affairs over some missing money in a drug case. Thus, why he and his partner, played by the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor, are not the boss's first choice to take over the hostage situation now unfolding at First Manhattan Bank. Add to that the fact that this will be their first hostage negotiation as the lead detectives, and you can understand why the department is nervous.

Finally, there is one more angle to play out in the elaborate and clever plot of Inside Man. This one involves a woman of mysterious political influence, Madeline White, played by Jodie Foster. Her job is to help high-profile millionaires keep hidden deep, dark and destructive secrets. Her new client? The owner of First Manhattan Bank Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer).

Now aware that his bank is being robbed, Mr. Case is deathly concerned about something he has hidden in a safe deposit box in the bank. He knows Madeline only by reputation. She fixes big problems by any means necessary and seems to have no moral hang ups. By the time the story plays out she will have used her considerable influence to get a face to face meeting with the bank robber Dalton Russell and live to tell about it.

Directed by Spike Lee, Inside Man does not reinvent the wheel in terms of suspense or the heist genre. What it does is take the familiar elements of the genre and simply do them better than other similar films. Working from a clever, but not exactly groundbreaking, script by first-time screenwriter Russell Gewirtz, Lee directs his first straight-edge thriller with little or no direct social commentary, his usual milieu.

The trick Spike Lee pulls off in Inside Man is bringing his considerable talent and intelligence cache to bear on a very familiar plot and genre. The film works because Spike Lee is a very talented director who knows how to build tension and suspense with his camera and by allowing his talented cast to do what they do without the interference of typical plot points.

Yes, those typical plot points, the negotiation, the red herrings, et al, are still there but the actors are not required to play to those elements. Rather they play around them allowing us to bring our own experience with this type of film into our understanding of the plot. Listen to the actors casually reference other so called heist pictures. Consider those mentions as signposts reminding us in the audience we are watching a heist picture. Meanwhile the actors play to the beat of their characters which gain depth and complexity with each passing scene.

Inside Man is a brilliantly constructed thriller patched together by arguably the best director working today. It serves not only as a wildly entertaining genre film, but also a reminder of Spike Lee's talent, which has gone atrociously underappreciated in recent years as films as disparate and exceptional as Bamboozled, She Hate Me and 25th Hour have come and gone with little notice. Watch Inside Man and remember, Spike Lee is still a genius.

Many indie artists have talked about the few mainstream compromises they must make to finance more relevant projects. The dichotomy comes down to one for the suits at the studio and then one for me. Until his recent box-office struggles, Spike Lee never had to make such a compromise. If Inside Man is the kind of studio compromise that Spike Lee must make to get his more relevant features made, then bring on the compromise.

Lee's skill with the thriller genre more than rivals his skill with social commentary.