PREMIERE.COM'S MOVIE REVIEW (posted 3/23/06)

Spike Lee's latest New York story is being billed as his most commercial film yet and that's true to a certain extent. A star-powered heist flick with a number of good surprises up its sleeve, Inside Man is more concerned with entertaining the audience than lecturing at them. But the famously confrontational filmmaker hasn't completely sold out to The Man; while his brand of brash rhetoric is muted here, the movie still has the distinct look and feel of a Spike Lee joint.

That's both good news and bad news. On the plus side, Lee's dynamic visual style is perfectly suited to the heist genre. His affection for sweeping Steadicam shots and cutting between different film stocks—often so distracting in his more dramatic efforts—ramps up the tension that's built into the already-gripping scenario. Smart cop Keith Frazer (Denzel Washington) squares off against ace bank robber Dalton Russell (Clive Owen). Marching into a lower Manhattan bank, Russell and his crew quickly take the 20-odd customers and employees hostage. Enter Frazer, who can tell right away that he's up against a formidable opponent. Whenever he thinks he has Russell figured out, a new wrinkle in the robber's plan emerges. Complicating matters further is the arrival of Madeline White (Jodie Foster), an independent operator that has been employed by the bank's owner (Christopher Plummer) to protect certain "interests" that she's not at liberty to divulge. As day turns to night, Frazer comes to realize that this isn't an open-and-shut bank robbery. The question is, what the heck is it?

Comparisons to Dog Day Afternoon are inevitable (Washington's character even namechecks that film at one point) and it goes without saying that Inside Man isn't as memorable as Sidney Lumet's 1975 classic. This movie is slick and superficial where its predecessor was raw and angry and none of the central characters are as richly drawn as Dog Day's thwarted lovers Sonny and Sal. On its own terms, however, Inside Man is an above average cops 'n' robbers story and easily one of the better New York movies to come along in awhile. (It certainly puts the recent Bruce Willis vehicle 16 Blocks—with its generic locations and poor sense of Manhattan geography—to shame.) Lee populates the movie with plenty of recognizable Big Apple types and picks up on the little details about the city that other filmmakers often overlook. There's a hilarious moment where the cops sit around arguing whether or not Metro North trains run through Grand Central that should have local audiences cracking up.

The other way you know that Inside Man is still a Spike Lee picture is because it suffers from some of his worst instincts as a director. He's still not above resorting to dubious stereotypes, particularly when it comes to Jewish characters. The movie also clocks in at over two hours and there are a number of places, like the lackluster final act, where the proceedings could have been tightened up. Part of the problem is Russell Gewirtz's screenplay, which builds an effective mystery only to offer a confusing, and rather unbelievable, resolution. The script's flaws are most keenly felt in the Jodie Foster storyline, to the point where her character seems more like a bumbling screw-up than a supposedly sought-after facilitator. Whenever Lee turns the camera back to Denzel and Clive though, the movie works. Like their director, these two pros know that they're taking part in a genre exercise, but bring plenty of personality to their standard-issue roles (the same goes for Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who appear in small supporting parts). Lee may one day make his sell-out movie, but this one isn't it.—Ethan Alter