Pay Strict Attention to What I Say Because I Choose My Words Carefully

Every once in a while you come across a movie that has you on the edge of your seat for parts of the movie. In the case of Inside Man, don’t expect to feel the back of your chair any time between when the bank robbers roll into the lobby and the end credits. Actually you may not even lean back into your seat until long after the credits finish rolling as you sit and try to comprehend what just happened and ponder if you should watch it again. Granted if you listen to the opening soliloquy (the dude even tells you to listen carefully), the ending shouldn’t be at all puzzling.

So what we have here is your basic bank heist. Guys (and a girl) go into a bank with guns waving; soon the cops arrive to make sure they get don’t get away while making sure none of the hostages are harmed. But you quickly realize this isn’t your ordinary game of cops and robbers. On one side you have Denzel Washington (Remember the Titans) as a detective and negotiator assigned to the case. Naturally he has some skeletons in his past namely some money that went missing from his previous case. On the other side of the law is Clive Owen (Closer) as the ringleader of the robbers who give a powerful performance despite spending the majority of the movie behind a mask, sunglasses and hooded sweatshirt.

At the peripheral of the case is Christopher Plummer (Must Love Dogs) who owns the bank yet seems to care less about the money inside the vault than something locked away in a security deposit box. That’s where Jodie Foster (Freaky Friday, no not the crappy Lindsay Lohan one, the original) comes in, she’s the person you call when you need something done, and done discretely. Almost a character despite never seen on screen is director Spike Lee turns the bank robbery into a bigger issue that also deals with race, class, and sex and is still able to feature his longtime collaborator, New York City itself even though most of the action takes place in the bank and a police trailer. And Spike had plenty to work with thanks to Russell Gewirtz, who throws in plenty of one-liners in between all the tense scenes leaving you laughing only to then wonder if you should have or not considering the overall tone of the movie. The best of which is Owen’s dislike for a Grand Theft Auto type video game the youngest hostage is playing.

Inside Man gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.