911 An Inside Job

Posted In: Inside Job

Myrl Menzie says...

MOVIE: Spike Lee has never been on my top list of directors. His movies usually have very strong social commentaries, and nothing more than that. Those social commentaries though are usually the same thing, and it always has to deal with race. Hell, he calls every one of his films "A Spike Lee Joint". I'm not against it, but it usually detracts from the story. Inside Man is really his first movie that really focuses on the narrative and is intent on telling an entertaining story. The film is his most mainstream film to date, and in my opinion is his best. Clive Owen plays a bank robber who decides to go Dog Day Afternoon style and perform an elaborate bank heist, but this theif has everything planned to perfection. The film opens right into the action and wastes no time. Denzel Washington plays the "average joe" hostage negotiator who is assigned to the case, and Chiwetel Ejiofor plays his partner. As the story progresses we learn more of what the true purpose of this bank heist is. The owner of the bank, played by Christopher Plummer, has a secret about his past that could destroy his repuation if released to the public and it happens to be located in an unlisted safety deposit box in that bank. He hires Jodie Foster to help him try and reason with Clive Owen's character, while all Denzel Washington is concerned about is serving justice. The film is quick, superbly edited, and extremely entertaining. Spike Lee doesn't compromise his techniques and the film still retains all of the familiar Lee social commentaries. Race and politics become the underlaying theme for the film and it moves it in the right direction. All the reviews and ads talk about the twist ending and a plot full of surprises. It's not that kind of movie, there isn't a Shyamalan twist waiting at the end of the movie, but there are a few secrets about the characters that are slowly revealed throughout. There are some surprises that will make you grin with shame becaue you didn't see them coming, and those are always fun. The racial and political theme is not overpowering, it's not what drives the film but rather enhances the character relations in the film. It's a really well put together piece of filmmaking. Sharp dialogue, light tone, and great entertainment make Inside Man a joint worth passing to the next person.



ACTING: This is the dream cast that any director would kill for. Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, and Willem Dafoe headline this impressive ensamble. I mean, how can you have bad acting with a cast like this? It's impossible. The cast is so experienced that they make it look easy to pull off roles like these. The characters feel natural and real, and are emotionally involving. It's a great cast.



BOTTOM LINE: Spike Lee proves himself to be a great storyteller. He focuses on the important things and highlights them with his personal touches. He even has his trademark "floaty camera" technique, which he uses to show determination on Denzel Washington's character's part. Even the opening titles and credits are done with style. He uses a very catchy song for the opening and closing credits that sets the perfect tone for the film. It's a song from Bollywood composer, A.R. Rahman. It's titled "Chayya Chayya". You can find the album on Amazon, it's the soundtrack to Dil Se. Inside Man is a tightly woven piece of filmmaking, and is worth your time

Posted on November 1, 2011

Pei Wratchford says...

Renegade director Spike Lee and actor Denzel Washington (MO' BETTER BLUES, MALCOLM X, HE GOT GAME) team up for the fourth time in this absorbing and byzantine caper film. Denzel plays Police Detective Keith Frazier, toiling in the Hostage Negotiation Team, who, along with his partner Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor), gets assigned to a daytime robbery at the Manhattan Trust Bank which had escalated into a hostage situation. But, with a cerebral criminal mastermind (Clive Owen) who seems to have thought of every contingency and is always one step ahead of the law and, also, with the involvement of a mysterious female civilian negotiatior (Jodie Foster), things get very murky indeed.



As usual with these types of films, there are layers of complexity woven into the plot. Nagging questions surface thru the course of the film which perplex the viewer. Why does the leader of the robber gang seem to be stalling? Why is the elderly chairman of the bank's Board of Director (Christopher Plummer) so invested in the goings-on? What exactly is Jodie Foster's character up to? Why do the robbers dig a hole in the storeroom? And, because this is a Spike Lee joint, there are several scene interjections of social and racial relevance. Let's face it, we're living in the post 9/11 era and Lee's sequence of the "Arab's" treatment by the police, in particular, underscores that plainly.



The magnetic Denzel Washington is again superb (but, really, when does the guy ever suck?). He always brings to his role an aura of cool assuredness and a certain stylish bravura. His smile, as usual, when directed at potential perpetrators, contains a biting intensity. Clive Owen is equally very good as the self-contained and calculated villain of the story, somehow becoming sympathetic enough that you sort of root for him. His opening lines, as he breaks the fourth wall and speaks to the viewer, makes him an instantly intriguing figure. Jodie Foster doesn't do as well in her nebulous role of a smirky, high-powered transactionist but she does do enough, acting-wise, to rouse the audience's curiousity. I do feel, however, that Chiwetel Ejiofor's talent is wasted here as he isn't given enough script with which to get his hands dirty.



INSIDE MAN isn't exactly set at a breaknecked pace. It's a contemplative feature film, a thinking man's thriller with very few action set pieces, though tension is maintained and remains palpable throughout. The movie's main selling point is the cast, who makes the most out of this twisty caper premise. This complement of actors has got to be Spike Lee's most star powered group yet. Now, the ending might leave a few audiences disgruntled for not having enough "punch" but it's perfectly in line with the cerebral tone of the movie.



INSIDE MAN proves the versatility of Spike Lee as a director as, this time out, he tackles a suspense film and does a more than adequate job. Once again, Spike ventures into slice-of-life, character-driven interplays, even giving his lesser actors time to briefly shine in the spotlight. There is one sequence - wherein the sergeant first on the crime scene reveals his casual racial prejudices to Detective Frazier - that I thought particularly effective. One of my favorite moments in the film is the scene wherein the police, after having solved a puzzle postured by the heist ringleader, continue to humorously argue about the details of the puzzle. And, then there's the prim-looking white guy whose cell's ring tone is Kanye West's "Golddigger." Anyway, if you don't mind sitting thru a film over two hours long - a film which, by the way, might require more than one viewing - and consulting your brain cells throughout its screening, then INSIDE MAN is for you. Plus, that Indian song, "Chaiyya Chaiyya," is kinda slamming.

Posted on November 1, 2011

Travis Greenburg says...

The one note about Spike Lee films is that you're never sure what you're going to get. I'm not really a fan, I find that his films are too convoluted with extraneous detail and somewhat over produced. Inside Man retains all the elements of a solid bank robbery/caper film, whilst also giving us Spike Lee's trademark of gritty, street-wise irreverence.



The problem with Inside Man is that it's impossibly unbelievable with a plot that strains the realms of credibility; combine this with it's over-long running time and you have a film that features some great performances by it's cast - Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer and Jodie Foster - but ultimately sags a bit in the middle and ends up becoming rather ponderous.



Lee manages to pull off a handful of effective scenes, but he doesn't have the flair to bring the whole movie off with real conviction. An enigmatic master criminal (Owen) - who spends most of the movie wearing a mask - plans and executes a "genius plan" in which he and several masked companions take over a Lower Manhattan bank and brutally seize several dozen of its customers as hostages.



The NYPD negotiator given the task of dealing with these crooks is an affable junior detective, Detective Keith Frazier (Washington) - under a cloud of suspicion from a previous case - he soon surmises that the perpetrators don't actually want the bank's money. Enter smarmy and elegant New York political insider Madeline White (Foster) who knows everybody and even has the ear of the Mayor.



Madeline is hired by the chairman of the bank's board of directors (Plummer) to oversee the crisis and make sure that certain secrets he has in his safe-deposit box stay secret. The bulk of the film involves the standoff between the bank robbers and the NYPD as they try frantically to ensure that the hostages remain safe.



Of course we know the hostages survive because Lee inserts interview footage of them after the heist is over, this device, however, tips off the outcome, dissipates suspense and quickly becomes tiresome. This is just one of the many techniques Lee uses to clutter the movie's structure and prevent the plot from unfolding as quickly as it should.



Obviously, everyone has something to hide, particularly the bank president, but when his past is revealed, it finally appears with a bit of a thud, with the movie going through to much difficulty to arrive at very little. In all fairness, Inside Man has some interesting things to say about race, money, power and the ethics of urban living, particularly in New York and the performances are wonderfully cynical and gritty.



Washington is sexy and strong, Foster is skillfully odious as the icy, sophisticated and amoral Madeline who cares for nothing but chasing big bucks, Owen is morbidly compelling as the determined heavy and Plummer is letter-perfect as the guilt-ridden bank honcho.



Lee, however, just doesn't seem able to bring all the disparate elements of a heist film into a convincing and gratifying whole and in the end; the movie is vaguely unsatisfying and impossibly far-fetched. Mike Leonard August 06.

Posted on November 2, 2011

Rosanna Dikes says...

Everything about INSIDE MAN makes the viewer want to love this film: Spike Lee as director, a stunning cast, a good musical score that sounds a bit like Bollywood music, a theme that invites social comment.



For this viewer the terrific ingredients do not add up to a unique suspense thriller of a film. The story is a variation of hundreds of other films (writer Russell Gewirtz somehow got away with just an outline of a script of holes) and the technique of telling the story - interspersing post incident interviews with the people involved in the caper - makes it thud along.



Denzel Washington is his usual fine acting self, playing a cop with his own demons. Chiwetel Ejiofor is solid as his partner. Clive Owen spends the better part of the film behind a mask but continues his reputation for quiet and powerful characterizations as the bank robber. Christopher Plummer is convincing as the back president with secrets to hide, which Jodie Foster as a middle-woman manages to manipulate. Willem Defoe is fine as the cop in charge. They all perform well in roles they could do in their sleep.



Clocking in at over two hours the film seems to dawdle over some inconsequential details in an attempt to camouflage the holes in the script. Spike Lee makes it work because of his style. But in the end the story isn't involving enough to hold our attention ('been there, done that') and this viewer, for one, fell asleep during portions when the film slowed for unknown reasons. Love the director and the actors, pass on the film. Grady Harp, August 06

Posted on November 2, 2011

Carline Siter says...

Spike Lee has created an imaginative and gripping thriller with "Inside Man". Collecting some of the biggest names on screen, Lee has put together a film that has both the thrills and twists to entertain, and the comments on society to give something more when the credits have rolled by.



Set in New York, the viewer enters the world of Dalton Russell, a bank robber with a so-called "perfect plan", and Detective Keith Frazier, who arrives to negotiate with the team of robbers. Add in the sub-plots of Arthur Case, who has a lot to lose in this robbery, and Madeleine White, a type of "discrete" agent with some less than legal influence, and you have a complex story line that gives you enough to think about to cope with a couple of viewings.



The names filling the credits are impressive, making the movie all the more enjoyable. Jodie Foster, (White), Denzel Washington, (Frazier), Clive Owen, (Russell, a surprisingly good bad guy!), Christopher Plummer, (Case, and Willem Dafoe all make this movie special in their own ways. They are all top grade actors with the skills to make the story live.



The social commentary is present all through the film at varying levels. For the most part, it is a subtle presence in the background, hardly making itself felt, but there none-the-less. At other moments, it is much more obvious. My own favourite scene is one betweem Dalton Russell and Brian, the young boy with his Playstation Portable and the violent games. Dalton asks about the game in which one has to do things such as kill and destroy people, (extremely graphically). Russell promises to have a word with Brian's father about the game. The entire movie is saturated with a social commentary on the corruption and violence that surrounds us, and a whole lot more.



This is one of the best films I have seen recently and is a movie that has given me lots to think about and consider. It is powerful in its twists, well-acted and very well executed in all aspects. It is thoroughly enjoyable on a number of different levels. A great movie!

Posted on November 4, 2011

Rana Sashington says...

This movie is a WINNER!



Totally entertaining, well acted and directed ... and one you'll be talking about when it's over.Pay close attention to the ending, I didn't realize how many twists there were until I talked with my husband, and several others who were walking out of the theater.



What a good ol'fashion mystery!ENJOY!

Posted on November 4, 2011

Shavonda Morthland says...

When master thief Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) takes a bank hostage, NYPD hostage negotiator Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and detective Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are called onto the scene to investigate and ease the situation. But they don't realize that Dalton is smarter than the average bank robber, and hostages constantly get whacked off. Complicating matters for the cops is Manhattan Trust's chairman of the board, Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer). A man with something to hide (in a secret safe-deposit box), Case hires power broker Madeline White (Jodie Foster) to move and shake her way into the middle of the crisis, the better to protect Case's secret.



If anything, Spike Lee is a good director. However, during the course of the new millennium, he has churned out a bunch of rancid comedy-dramas: "Bamboozled" (with Damon Wayans) and "She Hate Me" (with Anthony Mackie). The problem wasn't that Denzel Washington - Spike's trump card - wasn't in them. They just weren't funny or insightful. So cut to 2006, and we have ran into the director's latest opus, "Inside Man". Good news, it's a great thriller that finally reunites him with Washington, and casts plenty of famous white actors/actresses (including Willem Dafoe, Foster, Owen, and Plummer) in memorable roles.



"Inside Man" touches on plenty of topics, one of many is Lee's trademark - race. But here, he manages to get into a groove instead of struggling to find a consistent tone, and enters into "25th Hour" territory by using 9/11 archetypes a backdrop. An act of terror in a bustling bank bristles blacks, whites, Sikhs, Latinos, and Jews in equal measure. The cops on the scene hardly hold in their own prejudices, and Lee playfully frames the film with two versions of A.R. Rahman and Gulzar's hit Bollywood song "Chaiyya Chaiyya".



There are also plenty of twists. We won't spoil too much for you, but as mentioned in the plot summary above, we know that Plummer's character has shady motives, and that Dalton may be doing more than just a heist.



And let's not forget the performances. Washington once again pulls in another powerhouse performance playing Keith Frazier. He keeps dropping monologues, stays even-tempered (much like he did in "Out of Time" and "The Manchurian Candidate"), plays cat-and-mouse games with Owen's bank robber, and shares some often humorous chemistry with Ejiofor (another great African-American actor, circa "Four Brothers"). Of course, he can play this character in his sleep, and we'd praise him no matter what. He shares equal chemistry shared with other stars, such as Foster (doing another impressive job as another female protagonist), Dafoe, and Plummer.



Well, it's safe to say Spike Lee has come back, but not in the way you hoped for. It still has Lee focusing in on racial issues, but he has created a thriller that is not loud or relying on cheap pyrotechnics. It wouldn't be obvious, considering he has Denzel Washington in his holster.

Posted on November 4, 2011

Debrah Meurer says...

The first thing that attracted me to this film was the cast.Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer, Jodie Foster, heck Willem Dafoe is really a bit player in this one.Not to mention that Spike Lee, not one of my favorite directors, but certainly capable of telling a good story, and the potential was there for brilliance.By now, you know surely that the film deals with a heist of a bank, that the thieves are not after the normal booty that bank robbers go after, and that someone high up in the bank brass stands to lose very personally based on the actions of the thieves.What you may not know is why the movie is so much fun and so great to see.



Clive Owen owns this film.Yes, Denzel is great and carries his scenes well, but Owen has the task of not only convincingly playing a thief who is totally in control of the situation, he has to play the role in a way to illicit sympathy from the audience.He does both things masterfully.No doubt you will be in agreement that his performance is the landmark achievement of the movie and the reason it ultimately works.Washington is a good two dimensional character, blending his desire to take advantage of this one great chance he has at landing a plum role within the police department and the fact that he is personally struggling with the pressure of his girlfriend who wants to discuss "the M word" and wear something on a certain finger.In fact, this becomes a large part of the film, right up to the very end.



If I noted a couple of weaknesses in the film they would be these.Jodie Foster's character, while necessary, seems to distract from the action.Her role is somewhat important, but I wished she had not been there.Also, the film wraps up somewhat clumsily, as it feels that an extra scene or two should have been left out.This would have made the scenes after the main action feel much tighter.The very end of the film was the only time I felt any urge to look at my watch.



These are minor complaints, believe me.In the end, this is a winner, top to bottom.The scary thing about watching movies like this is that the idea the crooks had for robbing the bank is so smart, it will be a wonder if other people don't try it.The heist strategy made that much sense.I highly recommend this film.You won't regret it.

Posted on November 5, 2011

Cyrstal Margolin says...

I had high hopes that this will be an intelligent movie and it was.The movie has the style of an old 70s classic bank robber movie.You can tell that's what Spike Lee was going for with some references in the movie to past films.



The story was well-told and very believable.There was no wild stunts performed, this is not an action thriller more of a crime drama.Though there was some surprisely funny moments in the film that might have seemed out of place, but it does lightened the tension, which is ok since its a drama.I don't have to tell you how the acting is considering the cast.Denzel Washington has his charm, Clive Owen is calm and cool bank robber, Jodie Foster could have been left out (not really necessary), William Dafoe is a believable NYPD captain (not arrogant).The characters acted like real people, there was no arguments between groups and it was refreshing.



Finally a real intelligent crime movie that I haven't seen since Heat (another movie about smart cops and robbers).

Posted on November 7, 2011

Sherrill Kakeh says...

For about an hour and 45 minutes, Inside Man had me on the edge of my seat, totally clueless as to what was going on and how the film was going to be resolved.But then, when the ending finally happened, I found myself to be pretty disappointed.Not disappointed in the film overall, but just at how Spike Lee decided to wrap it up.



The plot is really simple:Dalton Russell, played brilliantly (as always) by Clive Owen, has devised "the perfect bank robbery," which he is executing in a branch of the bank in the middle of New York City.Detective Frazier (Denzel Washington) is called on the scene as the head negotiator, and proceeds to delve into a cat-and-mouse game with Dalton.The situation is further complicated when Jodie Foster, who plays an unexplained, extremely influential woman, comes onto the scene demanding to be given access to the robbers and to the bank itself.Foster's character is the one part of the movie that just doesn't seem to fit.We know why she is there, but her character is not developed at all.We don't know why she does what she does, how she got to this point, or why she is so ridiculously confident about getting her way.



Other than Foster's character, we pretty much know exactly the kind of person we are dealing with when it comes to Russell, Frazier, and the other important roles.While the film does a great job of infusing the racial issue with the routine bank heist storyline, the film ultimately trips over its own feet.A film with this much build up, and when the build up is this well done, needs to absolutely blow the viewer away with the ending, or the whole film seems to be for naught.When the ending comes, I was left thinking, "is this really why the robbers went to all this trouble?"There are some minor plot holes, but the film does explain itself, just not to the extent that I was expecting or hoping for.This is the best Spike Lee film that I have ever seen, but that really isn't saying that much...



Inside Man definitely gets my recommendation, but be forewarned that the film ultimately can't live up to its own cleverness.

Posted on November 8, 2011