06/04/06 Inside Man

Inside Man (2006), directed by Spike Lee

watched w/ Leslie; theater (Blue Ridge Cinema, Raleigh, NC)

A departure from most Spike Lee joints, but still a very good film. Going for some calculated action in this bank heist movie, we never lose Lee's attempts at social commentary and civil rights activism that permeates through all of his work. Usually choosing to show an inner-city culture that has shocks of violence and blue-collar crime, he here decides to take on the bureaucratic white-collar crime element. Revolving around many different sides of a meticulously plotted bank heist, the story delves into the intellectual and social reasons for such a crime to be committed. Denzel Washington plays (is he not the man or what?!) a tough police detective who is called into a hostage/heist situation in downtown New York City. Clive Owen plays with ingenuity the clever headman for the team of would-be bank robbers, as he opens the hostage negotiations with Denzel as a coy game of cat-and-mouse, never leading onto what his hidden agenda is. As usual, there is a superb cast in this Lee film, including Willem Dafoe as a fellow police captain, Jodie Foster as a connivingly savvy power broker, and Christopher Plummer as rich & fishy bank founder. Not only is this a smart crime film, albeit taking its sweet time getting around to the bottom of the meaning for the heist (intentionally so for dramatic effect); but the poignant social perspective is there by Lee, albeit a bit more subdued than his usual forcefulness. There are moments of this in context to the characters, namely a briefly alluded to subject of Denzel's character being accused of wrongdoings and passed over for promotions due to his race, a misidentified hostage who police think is Arab and therefore a terrorist who doesn't hold the same civil rights...and the looming atrocities that Plummer's character has attempted to bury with the past. Lee uses some of his signature camera-shooting stylings, but overall you notice how very "un-Spike" this one tends to be. That still doesn't mean it's not good, it's great like a lot of his stuff. A very character driven story of life and crime, and a life of crime which has everyone questioning motives. The environment that is created is an unstable one of human emotions that threatens to implode at any moment.

5 out of 5 stars