INSIDE MAN (2006)
Spike Lee’s bank heist thriller, set in and around the bank in question in lower Manhattan. Denzel Washington is the hostage negotiator charged with diffusing the situation. Clive Owen is the situation, a brooding, moody bank robber in a clunky, creaky bank robbery.
The plot, the characters, and the treatment of the locations are too by-the-bank heist-book to offer any unique excitement or pleasure. What twists there are on the formula, are hardly any help to us. The robbers, trapped and surrounded in the bank would have a tough time escaping with the loot. Inside Man, however, reduces the size of the cargo, and thus the amount of suspense and excitement. Now, they only need to get out of the building. And anyone who’s seen the first ten minutes of the film is tipped as to how that’s meant to take place. There is a single variant on this escape, but it is hardly varied or original enough to be called a twist or a payoff.
A wild card comes in the form of Jodie Foster, a sort of off the books problem solver to the city’s elite; we see a clearly important judge squirming at her calling in a favor he owes her; we see, too, her dining with the city’s mayor. She is employed by the bank president (played by a sleeping Christopher Plummer) to protect his interests in a particular safety deposit box (what’s in the box, we learn, could ruin him. Why keep it? Why keep it there?). She proves not wild enough a card, though, to bring any surprises or fun to the proceedings.
Of course, the moment we learn of the box, and learn that no one could possibly know of its existence, we know that it has to be the target, the single object of attention. (How interesting would it have been if the robbers had just stumbled upon it, and had to adjust their whole scheme around this discovery?) What is sinister about this, what is offensive about this, is that once we find out the somber importance of the box’s contents, and their horrifying meaning, it is hardly fitting subject matter to be reduced to plot contrivance in an otherwise filmed-before, seen-before heist film.
This goes especially for Spike Lee, who’s made a career of socially conscious films, which still tend to be rewarding viewings. This film, however, only rewards the slightest of attentions, the most distracted viewings. Anything else, and the contrivances become too much to bear.
DVD Details:
Nothing special on the DVD. There’s a standard issue commentary, a few deleted scenes (why do they persist in putting these on the DVDs? Don’t people know that they’ve been left out of the film for a reason? Can’t we see that?), and a couple behind-the-scenes featurettes.
HDFEST RATING:
Overall: C-
Acting: B+
Plot: D
Originality: D
DVD: C
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