Deborah Lipp

Inside Man (2006) 10/10
A bank robber (Clive Owen) has planned the perfect crime, but must deal with hostage negotiator Frazier (Denzel Washington), the bank owner (Christopher Plummer) and a high-level political fixer (Jodie Foster). Directed by Spike Lee.

Inside Man opens with a monologue by Dalton Russell (Owen’s character) spoken directly to the camera. Quickly, we learn that Russell is smart, cocky, forceful, and interesting. He has the audience on his side, without any special pleading—we’re ready to go, so let’s watch the robbery!

From there, we follow his trip from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan, as he picks up his gang. As fabulous Bollywood dance music plays (I’ve already bought the album), Lee’s camera pays attention to detail; to road signs, to architectural facades, to streets, to traffic. This is all very particular, we are in this place, with these people, and it looks like this. It sets the entire movie up; there’s mystery, excitement, and particularity. A bank robbery movie with two big actors as cop and robber, respectively, sounds generic, but there’s nothing generic about Inside Man.

The opening music also establishes a Spike Lee trademark: Ethnic diversity, both with and without hostility. At one point, Detective Frazier’s team cannot translate a crucial audiotape, because they cannot identify the language. ‘Hell, this is New York,’ the detective says, ‘Put it on loudspeaker, someone in the crowd outside will know.’ And he’s right.

Although Inside Man isn’t predictable, there are things you can predict. As I sat in the theater, knowing that this would happen, or that wouldn’t happen, it was because I was coming to know the characters, not because the plot was transparent. Tightly written, the plot only gives itself away when it wants to, but it is not just plot construction that is well-written. The people are well-written; the actors live in their skin, the director gives them room to breathe, and the screenplay never asks them to betray themselves. At one point, a news reporter says that ‘a planned robbery spiralled into a hostage situation,’ which is a typical sort of thing to say. But we know better, Russell’s plan included taking hostages from the beginning—we don’t know why, but we saw it happen, and we also saw that Russell is careful, calm, methodical. Nothing “spiralled” here.

Later, when we are shown something that is unbelievable if the characters are who we think they are, we know we have been tricked. We are meant to know; the late-movie reaveal of the trick is underplayed; it’s more confirmation than revelation. We have been led to trust the characters more than the looping and surprising machinations of the plot.

Surprising it is, and there is significant pleasure to be had in watching it unfold. Also in watching the characters unfold, watch Detective Frazier get smarter, watch the interviews with the fifty-some hostages, any of whom might be the bank robbers—the police just can’t sort everyone out. Minor characters—a hostage with a few lines about noticing a woman’s breasts, a grandmotherly hostage who was humiliated by having to remove her clothes—are all well-drawn. The filming is excellent; everything we look at is worth a second look. This is the sort of movie that will be worth watching again on DVD, because the visuals are rich and intricate.