Trailer:http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/insideman/
Review:
Grade: A
Spike Lee's new crime drama, Inside Man, is nothing short of brilliant. It's also one of the two or three best films he has made in his twenty-year career, along with Do the Right Thing and He Got Game.
At once celebrating, deconstructing and surpassing the heist films and police corruption movies of the 1970s, Lee joins forced with producer Brian Grazer to craft a pressure-cooker thriller. After making many social commentary films, such as Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, The 25th Hour, Lee seems reenergized by the opportunity to helm an interlocking puzzle, in which no piece is what it seems to be.
It's a pleasant surprise to realize that the multi-layered and both character and plot-driven screenplay, in which no detail is unimportant, and no clue is a throwaway, was written by a newcomer, Russell Gewirtz.
This is Lee's fourth teaming with Denzel Washington, following Mo' Better Blues, Malcolm X, and He Got Game, a track record that speaks for itself. Washington plays Keith Frazier, a newly promoted detective, who must rise above a corruption scandal. Clive Owen is Dalton Russell, a brilliant criminal who upends what we think we know about a bank robbery. Jodie Foster is cast as Madeline White, a mysterious Manhattan power broker who gets accomplished exactly what her clients pay top dollar for.
In Inside Man, Washington, Owen, and Foster explore the lure of power, the ugliness of greed, and the mystery of a seemingly perfect robbery that leaves no traces. In this skillfully written and tightly directed thriller, the powerhouse actors play tough New Yorkers, who must outwit one another in order to protect competing interests. The three key players collide in a potboiler that teases the audience with tricks of camera and twists of plot.
Gewirtz has crafted a fresh, intriguing take on the genre of the bank robbery heist that surpasses in narrative complexity, multi-layered characterization, and both political and moral ambiguity the best samplers of the popular genre, including Sidney Lumet's 1974 masterpiece, Dog Day Afternoon, to which Inside Man alludes to directly.
The film is framed by Russell's voice-over narration, which begins and ends the story. Addressing the viewers directly, Owen encourages them "to pay strict attention to what I say, because I choose my words carefully, and I never repeat myself." His dictum holds true as we chase the various players across darkened rooms and corridors of power to see, who will be scammed by whom, and who will wind up on top.
It starts out simply enough, when four people dressed in painters' outfits march into the bust lobby of Manhattan Trust Bank, a cornerstone Wall Street branch of a worldwide financial institution. Within seconds, the costumed robbers place the bank under a surgically planned siege, and the 50 or so patrons and staff become unwitting pawns in an air-light heist.
The first reel is familiar from heist movies, though, just when you say to yourself, this is a remake or variation of Dog Day Afternoon, with Own playing the Pacino part, the movie shifts direction and tone and you realize you're in a totally different milieu.
NYPD hostage negotiators, Detectives Keith Frazier (Washington) and Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor, recently seen in Dirty Pretty Things) are dispatched to the scene with orders to establish contact with the ringleader Russell, and ensure safe release of the hostages.
Working with Emergency Services Unit (ESU) Captain John Darius (Willem Dafoe), the team is hopeful that the situation can be peacefully diffused and that control of the bank and release of those inside can be secured in short order.
To say that things don't progress as planned is an understatement. Russell proves an unexpectedly canny opponent, clever, calm, and in total command. He's a puppet master (in more senses than one), with a meticulous plan to disorient and confuse not only the hostages but also the authorities.
Meanwhile, outside, the crowd of New Yorkers grows as the situation becomes increasingly tense. Frazier's superiors become more concerned about his ability to keep the standoff from spiraling out of control
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