After having a major falling out with critics--myself included--with 2004's execrable She Hate Me, which found him acting every bit the arrogant and pretentious racial relations warrior he seems to be, Spike Lee manages to spike his career once more with the highly enjoyable and entertaining bank heist flick Inside Man. Not only has it revitalized Lee's career, but the film has also proved a boon to the box office, as well as to 2006's first (terrible) quarter at the cinema, which is quickly racing into its last days with few decent films to show for it. In other words, just in time for Spike to swoop in unexpectedly and rescue it at the last minute.
The film opens with a bang as shady criminal Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) intones, staring directly into the camera, "My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself." This brings us into the proceedings with an instant sense of immediacy and urgency, and from there we find Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), a tough NYC dick who seems bored lounging around at the office and who is ready to tear into something big and juicy. This big, fat steak o' crime comes in the form of a suspicious Wall Street bank held under siege by a small group of masked bandits led by Dalton Russell. After being tipped off about the bank and feeling that this may indeed be the case that garners him first paygrade, Frazier, accompanied by partner Detective Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor), swiftly rushes to the bank where he attempts to solve the crime in progress in cooperation with police captain John Darius (Willem Dafoe).
While all of this is going down, the old Wold War II veteran that owns the bank franchise, Arthur Chase (Christopher Plummer), is informed by his secretary that one of his banks has been taken hostage. Chase seems complacent enough until he discovers which of the banks is being robbed. Deeply concerned about this, Chase heads to Wall Street to try to help Frazier, but when that turns out to be a dead end, he calls in a shifty character named Madeline White (Jodie Foster) to deal with Frazier and to make sure that Russell does not get away with anything that they don't want him to. As the hours wear on, Frazier begins to realize that Russell is doing more stalling than he or the police are, and comes to the conclusion that this is most definitely not your everyday bank robbery.
This may all sound fairly routine, but Spike Lee, with a screenplay by first-time writer Russell Gewirtz and an energetic, lively cast, manages to reinvigorate all of the old standby bank robbery flick clichés with verve. Take one of the most appealing aspects of the film, the hostages Russell has cooped up in Chase Financial. The squealing, stubborn hostages are a well-worn staple of most major heist flicks, be it Dog Day Afternoon or Die Hard. We remember the relucantly supportive gang from Dog Day Afternoon, and Hart Bochner's slick, overconfident jackass from Die Hard; basically used but reliable archetypes. Inside Man is not the kind of film to leave an archetype's feathers unruffled, and this being Spike Lee's New York, the claustrophobic tension of the usual crime flick is ratcheted up several notches until it eventually explodes into a multiracial, multicultural boiling pot. A Seikh hostage (Waris Ahluwalia) being unmasked by cops only to be screamed at by said cops, who label him a dangerous Arab because of his beard and his turban, is one of the most memorable screen moments in recent memory.
That scene also results in a lot of humor, as do most of the hostage negotiations and puzzle solving steps. One of Inside Man's key successes is that it manages to unearth wealths of unexpected comedy that underlie all of the serious goings-on. I was expecting something run-of-the-mill and stiff; what I got was a fast-paced, wise-cracking, edgy thriller that got me ready for this summer's torrent of blockbusters. This is not to say that Inside Man is an anti-Hollywood picture in any way; it takes its conventions and embraces them. Lee and Gewirtz do a very good job of subverting these clichés, but they never stray from the ready-made path that several decades' worth of similar thrillers have laid for them. This is a Hollywood picture through and through, as it never quite has the balls to take the conventions, rip them apart, and put them back together again (like, say, George Lucas in the original Star Wars, Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, or Joss Whedon in Serenity). But seen through Lee's lens, this is a very appealing kind of Hollywood product that manages to add a sharp, oftentimes funny, edge to every point on the map. I have the feeling that had the same script been given to a less talented band of filmmakers, it could've very easily been another pre-summer throw-away.
Luckily, though, that's not the case. Denzel Washington is here and ready to boldly take a big bite out of his part, completely erasing the overbearing and melodramatic John Q from my mind (which is quite a feat). Willem Dafoe is of course enjoyable to watch as always (and what versatility this man has!), and Clive Owen gives a very memorable turn despite his face being cloaked for almost the entire running time. Christopher Plummer is no schlub, either. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I've never been big on Jodie Foster, but apart from The Silence of the Lambs or maybe Taxi Driver, she does the very best work of her career here, fleshing out a puzzling enigma of a character that all throughout the film remains almost too enigmatic. This is one of the film's biggest faults: It has a lot of really exciting mystery and requires a fair bit of thought from the audience, but it constantly treads the fine line between excitingly mysterious and frustratingly ambiguous (and trust me, there's a very big difference). By time the end of the film comes around, we still have twenty more minutes of watching Frazier and Mitchell attempt to wrap up what exactly happened, and searching for some sense of closure, which results in a wayward, somewhat sloppy third act that leaves us wondering if it was all worth it. But we don't have much time to linger on that thought before Denzel makes another crack and we're back to our shiny happy selves.
But forget all of the previous six paragraphs' worth of nonsense. Let's get to the real reason that you need to see Inside Man: Chiwetel Ejiofor, who surprised the holy hell out of me as the sinister yet oddly sympathetic and noble Operative in last year's aforementioned Serenity. Not only was he great there, but he was also the only tolerable part of the also aforementioned She Hate Me. Ejiofor has been a member of supporting casts for some of the most critically-acclaimed films in the past few years, and with his co-starring turn as Washington's partner in this surefire hit, his star is poised to explode in a glorious, blinding flash of white hot awesomeness.
