Inside Man (spoilers)

With Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster starring and Spike Lee directing, one who suspect this movie would be a home run. There should be no question about that, right? Wrong! This movie is not a home run. It is a double with no one on. This is an example of talented people wasting their talents on something that just doesn't measure up.


Yes, the acting is mostly amazing. However, i am not sure the true point of Jodie Foster's character, except to annoy me with her weird voice. I don't remember that barely audible whispering in silence of the lambs. Denzel needs to play something other than a cop soon but here he is really quite excellent. He keeps up the mannerisms of the character throughout the film, but gets kind of sucked into convoluted secondary plots. Clive Owen is remarkable, as always. He doesn't emote much in this and reminded me a bit of the character he played in Sin City. He just is always in control and always looks cool. He is the bad guy yet you root for him the entire movie.


The bank robbery plot is nothing new and in fact this movie mentions the most famous bank robbery movie "Dog Day Afternoon." The writer did create an impressive new method of hostage taking that made the movie better than it should have been because the script was just weak and the secondary plots could have been done away with. That may have been the biggest issue, that these secondary things came from out of nowhere and never really resolved. I enjoyed the idea of the robbers making everyone dress like them so in the end when the cops caught them no one really knew anything. It was clever, but not clever enough to save the dialogue. I think this is Spike Lee's first real attempt to make a fully mainstream film and he assembled the right talent for the endeavor but something was missing. I guess there wasn't any real suspense in the movie. You pretty much knew what was going to happen a bit before it actually happened. I had high hopes for a Denzel and Clive scene and luckily their scene together was just as I had hoped but overall the pacing was off and it just didn't go anywhere.