Inside Man Movie Review

Well I went to see this Spike Lee film and I have to say that this one is his best. I liked Malcom X too but this one is better. It follows Dog Day Afternoon fairly well with a group of bank robbers dressed as painters go into a very upscale bank and take everyone hostage. The opening scene kind of made me think of that scene in Heat where they knock over the bank. I have to rewatch it to find out why it made me think that way.

We are then introduced to Denzel Washingtons character and I was blown away by him. He was dressed like a Fancy Dan with a fedora and a starched suit. Kind of a quirky detective that I guess New York seems to create. He has a great interplay with his partner the same guy that was the interpreter in Amistad. The scenes with them together are outstanding. Denzel's character is fighting some kind of bribery rap so he may or may not be crooked. He seems like an okay guy and this hostage thing is his big chance.

So we go through the plot and you are thinking who the bad guys actually are and how they are going to get away with it. In the course of events we get introduced to a bunch of Spike Lee style characters. There is a Sikh guy with a turban who is released from the bank who is humliated that he is though of as an Arab and his turban is taken. We also have a Brooklyn style guy who is grabbed off the street that knows Armenian which is what the cops are picking up from the bank on a bugging system. We then see his wife who trades her bag of parking tickets in to help the cops. There is also an obnoxious Italian girl (who I thought was pretty hot), a Jewish woman who would rather be shot then disrobe, and another Jewish guy who is a diamond merchant of some kind. Just a melting pot, slice of life, New York style.

We also get introduced to Willem Defoe and Jodie Foster. Defoe is kind of underused and is pretty much just a cameo role. But Jodie Foster does a great job as an ice-queen bitch corporate fixer who is working for the bank president. She exudes a menace and polished confidence in everything she does. It is a great roll that I wanted to see more of in the movie.

There are a bunch of twists and you can see that the plot is very well developed with the acting performances holding everything together. There is a nice twist at the end that I really liked and has the "fight the system" vibe that most Spike Lee movies give off. All and all it was a very well done movie that I will probably end up buying the DVD of.