Inside Man
Dir Spike Lee
Written by Russell Gewirtz
Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, Chiwatel Ejiofor.
Detective Keith Frazier (Washington), is one NYC Negotiators, who is being investigated for a crime he didn’t commit. He is called out to a bank robbery, led by the cool and calm Dalton Russell (Owen), who is holding 50 people hostage. Not only does Frazier have to contend with the Captain who wishes he wasn’t there (Dafoe), but also a ‘fixer’ by the name of Madeline White (Foster), who has been called in by the bank’s chairman – the uber rich Arthur Case (Plummer), who needs something in the bank to stay in his security deposit box.
A different genre vehicle from Lee, who does well with the bank heist caper. There are some great camera angles (such as gods view, and low angle etc) – and some great long takes as well – especially towards the end. I quite enjoyed the plot, however there were some aspecst I wish were a little different, which I will touch on in a moment.
The cast all do quite well, but I felt that the primary three characters were a little underwritten – especially in a film a little over two hours long. Washington, who plays the central protagonist – is a man who is under IA investigation. While we are to assume he is innocent of this, there doesn’t really seem to be 100% certainty that he is. Owen, who plays the antagonist is a little underused as well –
The screenplay works well, and is quite engaging. It is dialogue heavy, as the ‘positions’ that the two leads find themselves in. The role of a negotiator is obviously to use verbal communication to help the situation. I did find it to be a ‘only okay’ in these moments, as other films with negotiators tend to be more aware of the importance of verbal communication.
The setting is primarily inside the bank, but does make some use of the neighbourhood NY. The score complements the film nicely, and there is some fun songs in the soundtrack, especially playing over the closing credits.
I’d recommend this one to watch.
3.5/5
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