Inside Man (2006) User Reviews

Spike Lee's Engaging A-Team Heist-Film Scores

[Instant_Palmer · 9/10 · 14 June 2021]

'Inside Man' engages the viewer from the opening scene through the credits. One of the better Heist films one can watch, with an all-star cast of highly-accomplished actors delivering the goods. Recommended viewing!

No ordinary film maker, Lee taps his expertise in film making, applying superior cinematography, editing, and direction skills.

Headlining the film is Denzel Washington as the good guy cop, and Clive Owen as the highly intelligent robber (with the screen-play thankfully avoiding the crazy/insane cliche' Bond movie villain characterization).

"Filling-in" as good as one will find in bank robber caper films are the superior supporting cast performances of Christopher Plummer (who has never delivered anything sub-par in his career), Jodie Foster (effectively playing against her "type"), Willem Dafoe (over-due for an Oscar), Chiwetel Ejiofor (perfect subtle side-arm detective partner to Denzel), and across the board good performances by the entire supporting ensemble cast.

Lee doesn't try to play out the big surprise ending cliche', but instead allows one to piece things together as the film unfolds, letting us "in" to the narrative piece by piece. This is refreshing and elevates the film overall.

Really hard to find any critical piece missing in the film. Editing and pacing excellent, and even the potentially preposterous story idea works. Yes there are a few "identifying the magician's tricks" moments inside what could have been a perceived as an over the top narrative, but one overlooks those because this is quite the entertaining film and it is put together so well - Witty dialogue delivered by some of the all-time great actors who were perfectly cast on their parts.

Bravo to all concerned👏, and two thumbs up!👍👍

an entertaining heist flick

[krigler · 8/10 · 3 March 2006]

Note: I stay away from describing the plot in any detail because it would be very hard to do so without spoiling elements of it. "Inside Man" starts out as a no holds barred, high octane action-thriller, and by its midpoint fully transforms into a breezy, tongue-in-cheek heist movie, reminiscent of The Sting. I felt it to be a little over-plotted, but that comes with the genre - the expected twists and turns are all here, thankfully mostly in non-expected ways. Contrivances abound, and we don't really learn the background of the heist (ie. how the robbers learned about their target) but the story and the overall atmosphere more than make up for this. The meticulously designed plot also compensates for the lack of real 3D characterization - save for Denzel Washington's ambitious policeman hero, who at least achieves a level of humanity throughout the story. The character interaction between him and his sidekick (Chiwetel Ejiofor of "Serenity" fame) and the frustrated captain played by Willem Defoe is great with some sparkling dialog. Clive Owen is okay, most of the time convincing as the criminal mastermind, although he spends most of the film wearing a mask. I'd say this film is harmless fun, not your usual Spike Lee fare, which goes to prove his versatility. There is a hint in the back-story at some heavy issues of the past, but it's nothing more than a macguffin that only achieves some slight significance in the resolution of the movie. There is a neat structural trickery in the use of flash-forward scenes, hinting toward the aftermath of the heist without giving away the real ending. It's used sparingly and cleverly. I can highly recommend this movie, it is never boring for a moment, what's more, I was enjoying it so much that as events were progressing toward the climax, I was wishing it would go on. And that's very rare for me in the movies nowadays.

With Inside Man, Spike Lee has crafted a very original and exciting thriller.

[PatrickRijnders · 8/10 · 14 March 2006]

Spike Lee is one of the most consistent directors out there. Save for some more uneven pictures like She Hate Me and Girl 6, Lee's body of work is just plain impressive. And while Inside Man is not up there with Do The Right Thing, Clockers and 25th Hour, it is definitely an entertaining and intelligent thriller that does things a little differently than most cookie cutter thrillers you see in theaters nowadays.

A bank robbery in New York has gotten out of control, and it's up to police detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) to act as hostage negotiator and get the bank personal and customers out safely before things turn even worse than they already are. This turns out to be a tough case, since the leader of the bank robbers, Dalton Russell (Clive Owen), turns out to be a very smart individual, who has everything planned to perfection, and who throws up surprise after surprise for Frazier and his men. But while the people around Frazier are slowly getting more and more nervous, he himself does not lose his mind, and begins a high stakes battle of wits with Russell. Things are further complicated, however, when the mayor of New York introduces a mysterious woman to Frazier. This woman (Jodie Foster) wants to protect something that is hidden in one of the safety deposit boxes inside the bank, and she will stop at nothing to force Frazier to let her inside the bank and make sure nothing happens to the contents.

This all sounds like an intriguing premise for a thriller, but the movie goes a few steps further than just having an interesting plot. Because while Inside Man does hit all the right notes when it comes to keeping you guessing about what is really going on, it is also very successful in mixing the grittier moments with comedy elements. At times, Inside Man is very funny, but in a way that does not deflate the tension. The dialogue is sharp, with the conversations between Frazier and Russell being especially fascinating, and both actors are at the top of their game in this new movie. Washington's Frazier is an intense but laconic individual, who has a permanent smirk on his face but who reads the bank robbers intentions better than anybody else, while Owen is charismatic and fascinating as the mastermind behind the bank robbery. I was a little disappointed however with Jodie Foster's role. While her part is potentially fascinating, she does not really get the chance to do anything with it other than look cool and act tough. Yes, we all know that she is very good at that, but with a bit more background story, and a bit more screen time, her part could have been even more interesting.

With Inside Man, Lee showcases an interesting way of directing thrillers. He ignores the usual build up that you see in thrillers, which consists of an introduction, a chronological development of the main intrigue, followed by a final act in which everything is wrapped up neatly (even flashing forward several times, thus revealing some important developments before they have happened), and this only serves to make Inside Man a movie that is more than your regular suspense movie. I enjoyed this original approach very much, even though he does take quite a long time to wrap things up at the end.

Intelligent thrills

[El Gato-4 · 8/10 · 22 March 2006]

A pleasure from start to finish. An older Denzel Washington has begun to emerge, and his performance here suggests he has many good years left. Clive Owen is terrific as the mastermind. He, and the plot, keeps you guessing. And while there are plenty of clues, they are so well incorporated that very few viewers will see how this one comes together in the end.

One major quibble: Jodie Foster's character is more archetype than person so it's to her credit that she pulls it off as well as it does. However, don't let that deter you from enjoying one of the best movies of the year. I'm glad to see Spike Lee tackle another genre film. He brings a re-invigorating approach to what, in other hands, would be a tiresome rehash. That liveliness seems to have worked on him, too -- this is his best film in several years.

My kind of movie in this genre.

[deloudelouvain · 8/10 · 22 April 2019]

In the crime/mystery genre Inside Man is just a bit better than a normal good movie. It's not excellent though, for that the heist is just too far fetched and perfect. Everybody likes to watch the perfect heist but in this case it's a bit exaggerated. But other than that small detail the rest of the movie is suspenseful, or at least it keeps you attentive as you keep wondering what will happen. For that there was the excellent interaction between Denzel Washington and Clive Owen. Both did a great job with their characters. The whole cast was perfect for this story. Spike Lee made another entertaining movie, one that I will watch again in a few years.

A good bank robbery film.

[theshadow908 · 7/10 · 10 August 2006]

Inside Man tells the story of a man named Dalton Russel, who leads a daring bank robbery that turns into a hostage situation. Now he's dealing with disgraced hostage negotiator Keith Frazier, who is attempting to get to the bottom of things. When the shady CEO of the bank and a woman he's hired to help him protect certain interests arrive, he begins to discover that there's more to this bank robbery than it would seem. This is the only Spike Lee movie I've ever seen, but trust me, I'll see more, since this was a very intriguing film.

What I liked about Inside Man was the style it was made. It is choppy, but not so choppy that it's annoying (cough, Domino, cough, Man on Fire), so you get a sense of tension, and it seems very high paced. The plot is good, and very intriguing. There are some things you have to figure out throughout the film, which makes it more interesting. My only problem was that after the bank robbery was over, the film continued for another half hour, and it started to drag a bit. The dialogue in the movie is very cool. There's some humorous and some awesome lines that come out of the character's mouths.

The acting is very good. Denzel Washington is good as always as Det. Keith Frazier. Clive Owen gives a solid performance as Dalton Russell. I liked Willem Dafoe and Christopher Plummer. Jodie Foster wasn't as good as she usually is, but she's not in the movie a whole lot.

Overall, the movie lags toward the end, but it's intriguing and has an awesome plot.

7/10

High time the academy gives Spike Lee some respect!

[shadowycat · 9/10 · 24 March 2006]

Whether I was into the subject or not, there's always a filmmaker at work in a Spike Lee film... he's one moviemaker who never loses sight of being a filmmaker first and foremost, and he's absolutely outdone himself with INSIDE MAN, a taut thriller which avoids the colloquialism that alienated mainstream audiences from some of his earlier work.

If you've seen the trailer or heard anything about this pic, you have been misled. Everything I heard left me feeling like yeah, OK, I'm going for Denzel. Denzel vs. Clive Owen will be interesting.

From the first shots and opening credits, you are submerged in artistic vision, and a finely honed piece of work the likes of which I haven't seen in years. I'd almost give this one a ten.. and I don't hand out tens freely. I do not want to spoil this. You have to walk in cold, and let this film grab you by the short and curlies.

This is one film where there isn't a spare frame or wasted cheap shot. Every zinger zings, and there are laughs too, laughs at merciful intervals to break the tension and remind an audience on the edges of its seats that movie-going's supposed to be entertaining, dammit. The cinematography is brilliant, and the music is fantastic - true cinematic score, true genius. I can't praise this one enough.

Christopher Plummer is superb, in what is (perhaps coincidentally) an ironic bit of casting. Jodie Foster rises to a challenging persona with aplomb and ease, and my only complaint of the entire exercise is that her character's name 'Madeline White' is perhaps a little cliché. Beyond that, there isn't a filmmaker alive who brings New York to the screen with anything approximating Spike Lee's vision.

It seems there hasn't been a lot of junket for this one, and that Spike Lee's presence has been downplayed... as if the studio downplayed the fact that this is a Spike Lee film slightly, until the word was out that this film is over and beyond what an audience might already expect from one of his films.

So... let me just say.. man o man this is a cinematic mind-blowing amazing one and a half hours... it's brilliant, tight, funny, articulate, intense, and high time the academy gives Spike Lee some respect.

Just a Tad Smug!

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 9 March 2010]

This is a decent but not particularly memorable movie. I thought that Denzel Washington was pretty good, but he seems to have settled into a type. Confident and unyielding and always right (Coach Boone from Remember the Titans). This is fine and I enjoy watching him. This movie is about a bank robbery where the perpetrators are after more than money. It has to do with a righteous cause, but what happens is that the possibility of pulling it off and getting what they want is on such fragile ground that you need to ask the question, "Isn't there an easier way?" Anyway, the scenes in the bank are quite good but we really need to extend our disbelief at times. I've always wondered about that "get me a plane and a million dollars" business anyway. Well, there's a lot more to it than that. See this and enjoy the characters, but in the long run, it's pretty far fetched.

Don't miss this awesome movie!!

[chungweikao · 10/10 · 21 March 2006]

This is a movie that you don't want to miss! Wonderful plot and keeps the audience guessing till the last second. Denzel is at his best playing the NYPD detective, his wonderful acting makes this story as believing as it can be. Clive Owen, what a superb actor! He is so clam, smooth, and elegant in this movie and he actually makes me root for the "bad guy" from the beginning till the end. Jodie was good, too. However, she doesn't shine as much as the other two actors, but she is still great. If you have seen the preview of this movie than think it might worth checking out, I'm telling you, this is 100 times better than you think! Get up from your chair and go see the movie, NOW!

Spike Lee puts together A-list cast

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 16 June 2014]

Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) talks about a perfect bank robbery from what looks like a prison cell. Police detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), still in the dog house for something, is given the bank robbery. Detective Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is his partner. There are hostages. The bank president Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) has something important in a safe deposit box. He brings in fixer Madeleine White (Jodie Foster). Captain John Darius (Willem Dafoe) is the uniform cop in charge of the crime scene. The robbers seem more interested in the storage room than the bank vault or the deposit boxes.

Director Spike Lee is making a stylized robbery. It's wall to wall A-list stars. That's actually distracting to have so many stars scattered in one movie. It takes away from any realism that Spike wants to inject into this movie. Also everything Spike does here is pointing to a surprise reveal. There is teasing, but this is over teasing. Everything is a mystery. Wink! Wink! Again it takes away from any realism. The mysteries are compelling for awhile but it gets tiresome.

The reveals are the biggest aspects of this movie. It's a shocking reveal and the jolt is quite enjoyable. But the more one thinks about it, the more problematic it gets. I have questions about the investigation. I have questions about the scheme. The cops should have used a re-enactment to place everybody in their spot. There is also video of the customers before the robbery. The investigation should be able to narrow the suspects much better. Then they should have tailed the suspects. I have questions that don't get answered.

Absolutely great film

[nathanmanson · 8/10 · 11 November 2020]

The film was fully incredible, it's not quite 9 status but it was really good, 8.5 would be spot on. I loved the twists and turns. I also loved how smart the bank robber was it made it really entertaining. Also how good is denzel Washington, literally everything I watch him in he's incredible. I've loved him ever since training day.

By not being a straight genre film it manages to strengthen and weaken itself at the same time

[bob the moo · 19 March 2006]

An ordinary day in a major bank, a man dressed as a painter walks in and points torches at the CCTV cameras. Seconds later more people dressed as painters burst in and announce their intentions to all inside. As the hostages are professionally moved into a group and made to dress in the same suits as the robbers, the alarm is raised by a passing cop. For Detective Frazier this is just what he needs to help take his mind off accusations of corruption and girlfriend stress. With a by-the-book hostage situation in front of him things look good but internal and external pressures soon convince him that things are not as straightforward as he first thought.

With the trailer offering a great Saturday night, twisty crime thriller, a heavy cast and a strange directorial choice in Lee, this was a film I was hoping would be glossy, slick, silly and fun. However, although I enjoyed it for what it was, I must confess that the lack of consistent direction and pace made it more difficult to get into than I had hoped. It isn't like this at first, with the film jumping right into a very slick taking of the bank and establishing a professional group of thieves to content with. Bringing in Frazier continues this delivery because he has a good swagger to him and it looked like they would pull off this film. You see, things like this need pace and energy and direction – like sharks, they need to keep moving forward or they die; they die by letting the audience question things or move back off the edge of their seat to a vantage point of criticism. With things like Phone Booth, we were never allowed to step back and thus it worked; however here it tries to do other things (to its credit) but these produce an irregular pace, inconsistent tone and tend to take away from the central, gripping action without putting in more than they take out.

It still works but it steps away from the robbery too often to touch on other areas. Now these areas could have been a great compliment to the main thread but they don't work as well as they should. The external pressures from Madeline White should have increased the tension in the film but instead they were mostly separate – interesting still but not complimentary. It doesn't help that many of the twists are obvious (certainly the reason for the robbery was obvious – even if it is never actually explained or justified that well) and when the final one does come it is delivered too slowly and reduces its impact. The film is funny and this works quite nicely without slowing things down. The device of the interviews as jumps forward is interesting but unfortunately it tells the audience too much and spoils some of the later action by making it too predictable. Like I said, I still enjoyed it but at times I found myself bothered by the impression that it was a genre movie actively trying not to be a genre movie and only hurting itself in the progress.

Visually the film is impressive even if occasionally it felt inappropriate for the material. The movement of the camera, the lush shots of New York, the "chest-cam" shots and the use of music are all unmistakably Spike Lee and it looks great for it. At times it is a bit obtrusive and almost feels too grand for the material but it is hard to criticise a great director (which is what I personally think Lee is) for having his own style and feel, even if at times he is a fault for reducing the pace and energy of the material. He shows that, although his personal films are more interesting, he can do a good job as director-for-hire as well. The cast are impressive on paper but the delivery means they are not all that good. Foster is a good example, she is a solid presence but her material is weak and half-done and I personally felt she could have been totally removed from the film without any great detriment. Washington is cool in the lead and gives a lively genre performance. The film suggests that he thought he was doing more than just a genre film and there are bits of his character that don't work – his eclectic wardrobe is one but his past and his girlfriend are also threads that don't work that well. Owen is lucky enough to have the best material and despite a so-so accent he does convince and drives the film forward. His motivations and background are annoying question marks but this is not his fault – it is the fault of the delivery that let me question things rather than rushing forward at full speed. Ejiofor is good and works well despite having little to work with. Dafoe is a nice addition but I did feel his material could have been done by someone less famous just as well as he did. Plummer starts the film with such an air of a "powerful old man with sinister secret" that you never doubt for second where the film is taking him – again not all his fault but he is not used at all well.

Despite all my misgivings, the film did do enough to engage me and entertain me on a Saturday night as I suspect it will many viewers. However in the cold light of day the film does have threads that don't work and problems relating to pacing and inconsistency in tone. Funnily enough it is actually the irregular pace that reveals the problems whereas it is had played itself as a straight genre film then it would have covered these with pace and energy. Worth seeing but by not being a straight genre film it manages to be both stronger and weaker at the same time.

Inside Man

[serenity0323 · 6/10 · 10 April 2006]

Great job by Washington, as usual, and an overall average film. Not nearly as huge of a let-down as Lucky Number Slevin, but Inside Man was not all that intriguing itself. It has huge build-ups and some really suspenseful moments, but the ending leaves you feeling a little cheated.

By all means, see the movie and judge for yourself - It just didn't deliver what I expected from it. I am most definitely not bashing the plot; you will be on the edge of your seat until the ending begins to be revealed. At that point you may feel like shrugging your shoulders and muttering "eh...". Washington does a great job of portraying his role, but you may feel a little resentful of his character's extremely bold/holier-than-thou attitude halfway through.

fundamentally flawed plot, unbelievable characters, major moral blind-spots = bad movie

[sissoed · 1/10 · 5 October 2009]

This review is full of SPOILERS and is meant for those who've seen this film.

1. Major plot flaw. The police would have identified the "painters" almost immediately, and this is hidden from the audience by the way in which the interrogation scenes are handled.

The criminals' strategy for escape was to blend in with the other hostages and be unidentifiable. The video surveillance cameras were disabled only 2 minutes before the "painters" entered. By checking the videos the police would see what customers had entered the bank before then and could rule them out as "painters." The police could also rule-out all employees, not only because employees would be on tape, but even if not, the employees would know who of their number was in the bank at the time they were seized.

This means that the "painters" could only be customers, and could only be among those customers who walked in during the two minutes between disabling the cameras and the entry of the "painters." Look at the number of customers already in the bank before the cameras went out -- a lot. Not many came in during those 2 minutes, even if some left during those 2 minutes. At most, let's say that 12 people came in during those 2 minutes, including the "painters."

Then get physical descriptions of the "painters'" height, weight, sex, etc., from all the hostages. Compare those with the physical details of the 12 people. Of the 12 people, how many match each description? If one, the police have spotted a "painter" already. If 2 or 3 or 4, the police have a very small number of people to investigate further to expose which of that small group is a "painter."

Moreover, every customer has to have a reason for being there: either to deal with an existing account, or open a new one. But a person opening a new account would go to an employee to start the process. So the "painters" each had to have already established an individual account with that bank. When did those 12 people open their accounts? The police would look at the time each of the 12 first opened an account. More recent accounts, opened at about the same date, would indicate who the "painters" might be.

Now, why were each of the 12 at that downtown branch at that time, as opposed to a different branch or a different time? It must be, either they work nearby, or live nearby, or are running an errand where the route includes that branch.

What friend or relative saw them in person before they left to go to the branch? How did they get to the branch -- walking, or subway, or taxi? How were they planning to get to their next destination? Where did they plan to go after their errand at the branch was finished? Who was expecting to see them at that place? Did anyone who was expecting to see them later that day wonder what had happened to them, or call the police to ask whether they were among the hostages?

Recently opened accounts, near the date of other accounts, by people who neither live nor work near that branch, or have a plausible errand, who can't tell a plausible tale of how they got there or where they planned to go next, or who was expecting them: these are the prime suspects for "painters."

The police very swiftly will have a very good idea who the "painters" are. Investigate them in detail and they are exposed; then pressure them to reveal the identities of the other criminals.

This is what real police would do, but the movie, by showing the police pursuing a different, useless approach, leads the audience to think the "painter" masquerade would work. This movie operates on the old principle "the criminal plot looks brilliant because the police are made to act like idiots yet look intelligent."

2. Major moral blindness. 50 innocent citizens are terrorized, held hostage, assaulted, battered, for a day, a very significant crime, and yet at the end we are told that because nothing was stolen from the bank, the government and the police are just going to drop the whole affair. But what the criminals did to those people was a far more serious crime than any theft of bank property would have been. This movie passes-off that crime as if it were nothing, nothing at all. The terrorized hostages are pushed off the stage like so many plastic dolls who've served their role in the filmmakers' story. But those characters are human beings. The criminals, supposedly motivated by an idealistic desire to act against a Nazi profiteer, commit a horrific moral injustice on innocent people, whose rights and dignity they are blind to, in the pursuit of their own moral mission. This is a profound moral flaw in this film. The criminals are narcissists, so focused on their own desire for justice in their cause that they are blind to the injustice they inflict on others as they pursue their mission.

3. Unbelievable characters. A billionaire bank president anguished over his past exploitation of the Holocaust, but who is trying to hide his past, by hiring a real estate agent who has a side-line as a high-level "fixer" of rich people's problems, who is herself disgusted by his pro-Nazi past, yet takes his pay-off check anyway, and whose only attempt to "fix" the problem is a short and ineffective conversation with the criminal master-mind? A supposedly smart and honorable police hostage negotiator who is also the chief interrogator of the suspects, and who takes a diamond pay-off from the mastermind with a laugh, and who is completely blind to the serious crime of terrorism and hostage-taking of 50 civilians? None of these characters is believable.

Well made heist flick

[Sven76 · 9/10 · 14 March 2006]

An unusual turn for director Spike Lee, the conventional heist movie 'Inside Man', starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster & Chiwetel Ojiofor.

Even though the plot has twists, it's still pretty straight forward stuff for the usually controversial filmmaker. What is obvious though, is that good filmmakers turn this material into something more than it might have been by a 'lesser' director.

Solid performances by the cast, even though Jodie Foster is somewhat underused in this, but still, a solid heist movie with an interesting turn of events.

some clever idea and great cast

[Rick-34 · 8/10 · 19 March 2006]

It's curious to see Spike Lee do a straight caper movie. The movie is absent Lee's usual politics, though there are occasional glimpses of his sensibilities. At one point a Sikh has his turban taken away and complains at ends how Sikhs are not Arabs and he's tired of getting harassed all the time.

Anyway, the cast is great - Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, and Christopher Plummer are all top-drawer actors. Willem Dafoe has a smaller part that doesn't use all of his talents, unfortunately. The clever twist the plot adds is that the bank robbers dress everybody up in the same masks and jump suits that they themselves are wearing. So if the police raid the bank, they'll have a difficult time figuring who the bad guys are. (This isn't a spoiler - it's in the trailers.) Clive Owen and the robbers are clearly up to something that becomes apparent during the course of the film. They are particularly interested in the safety deposit box of the bank CEO, played by Christopher Plummer. Jodie Foster is brought in by him to protect "his interests". Her existence is amusing in that it reveals a bit about what Spike Lee thinks the corridors of white power are like. (Here's a hint, Spike: rich white folks don't swear at each other quite as much as you make them do, and in particular the word used by the Mayor to describe Jodie Foster's character is way beyond the pale. A real woman with as much influence as her character had would retaliate massively after being so described. But Spike Lee has never quite managed to capture any female character correctly, dating all the way back to Nola Darling. I digress.) The good parts of the film involve the interactions between Washington and Owen. Also, the many small man-on-the-street conversations are great. This aspect of observing street life has always been one of Lee's strongest points.

It was interesting watching a Spike Lee caper film. I kinda like the idea. It's better than the formulaic caper films that are the rage, and features some of Lee's trademark shots, like when he puts an actor on a dolly to create non-walking walking movement. I recommend the film.

Caper film with a very exciting storyline and surprising ending

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 15 May 2006]

A carefully and neatly perfect crime about a bank robbery goes awry when a band (leader of the gang is Clive Owen)abducts and takes hostages to people of building interior. A Police Inspector(Denzel Washington)must save at whatever cost the hostages bank what's suddenly under siege and itself surrounded of heavily super-armed polices .The robbers have sworn kill if they attack.Psychosis and paranoia abound between the prisoners from all sides and they can see no way out and someone making desperate tryings to flee.Clive Owen as the mastermind,executes an intelligent scheme is both exciting and thrilling although with a twisted finale.

Film packs maximum tension,emotion,thriller and surprise from the subsequents attempts by the policemen to enter in the bank. This movie is a crowd-pleasing blend of intrigue,tense,action packed and fast movement .It's a good production values with several stars and a clever twist ending. Great producer Brian Grazer assembled a highly talented international cast(Denzel,Owen,Jodie Foster,Christopher Plummer).The casting is absolutely perfect tough Clive Owen is mostly hidden into a hood. Crisp acting by Denzel Washington who plays a policeman making a first rate interpretation.Magnificent cinematography by Matthew Libatique.Memorable score by Terence Blanchard,he is Spike Lee's habitual films. Taut direction makes this splendid caper a crackerjack entertainment. Spike lee's realization is razor sharp.This is one of the finest last years of the big heist genre and much better than Ocean's eleven,Ocean's twelve and Italian job. Rating : Above average and well worth watching.

if you love hostage movies with suspense, DON'T miss this.

[eiknarf737 · 10/10 · 2 April 2006]

Some people love it, some people don't.

well, i am not the kind of person that looks for the little things in movies to tear it apart and call it awful.

the storyline was amazing. the idea was genius. denzel and clive owen play good guy vs bad guy, and they did a good job. i didn't think this movie was gonna have "action" in it but the action it had was beyond excellent. the way the robbery was conducted gave the viewer chills because it was so amazing. don't listen to bad reviews, if you love hostage movies and suspense/thriller movies (like hostage, phonebooth, etc) then go see this! you will be guessing until the very end. best movie ever.

Conflicited Opinion

[JohnBlane · 7/10 · 26 January 2020]

This film is a superb bank robbery film, it had me hooked in the first half. But then it dropped off a lot. This is genuinely one of the least climatic films I have seen. Christopher Plummer's character has a massive secret, one he can't tell anyone about, and you're hooked. You want to know why these guys are robbing a bank, you want to know why they're stalling. There are loads of interesting details scattered throughout. Denzel Washington's performance is top-notch - as per usual. But the second half of the film lags, overdrawing on things we already knew, and pulls in all the wrong directions. Sometimes you would rather it be an ambiguous ending, or at least have some mystery. Instead, we have a bit of a letdown on what was really in the safe, and that's it. I would've preferred for it to be like the business case in Pulp Fiction, where the contents are never implicitly stated. And Jodie Foster's character is just too convenient, she's never fleshed out well enough for the audience to take her seriously. Rather she's just the lady who 'knows people'. I was left wondering the entire time how she got to this massively high status. In all other aspects, it is great, it just could've used some tweaking.

Excellent and absorbing

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 23 November 2008]

"Inside Man" is a wonderful Spike Lee film starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Willem Dafoe, Jodie Foster and Christopher Plummer. It's about a bank robbery planned by Owen that turns out to be something very clever and very different. Washington plays a police detective under investigation for missing money who, knowing he's innocent, wants to prove himself and get to detective first grade. He and his partner investigate this bank robbery, which has 50 hostages, all who have been given outfits and masks so that they're dressed like the robbers. Therefore, it's impossible to tell who the robbers are. It's also increasingly difficult, as Washington attempts to negotiate with them, to tell what it is they're after. When Foster, a high-level negotiator hired by the bank owner (Plummer) enters the scene, Washington knows something much bigger than money is involved.

Really excellent movie with twists and turns combined with humor and some really scary scenes. My only complaint is that Clive Owen is a bad choice to play someone who spends most of the movie in a mask. It's too frustrating to have someone that good-looking covered up.

Okay, but had the potential to be brilliant

[grantss · 6/10 · 26 December 2019]

A gang holds up a bank, takes hostages and is trapped inside the bank by police. A police hostage negotiator arrives and takes charge but the gang don't seem to be following the usual playbook. Even more mysteriously, the chairman of the bank has hired his own negotiator.

Intriguing and riveting...initially. The movie was set up to be a great heist drama, with a large dose of mystery thrown in. I was looking forward to see the course of events unfold and the puzzle be solved (or, even better, figure it out myself).

Unfortunately, the level of intrigue and uncertainty reduces almost immediately as we have flash-forwards that give away elements of the outcome of the bank siege. From a point you can see how the siege is going to pan out.

The bank chairman / private negotiator aspect, something which I initially thought was unnecessary and just detracted from the main story, becomes more important and adds intrigue, but it also serves to muddy the plot somewhat. More disappointingly, this sub-plot becomes the main plot and results in a unsatisfactory, smug, moralising conclusion.

Overall, interesting enough but also quite disappointing as it could have been so much better.

I Keep Six Honest Servingmen

[boblipton · 9/10 · 13 November 2020]

Clive Owen is in the middle of a perfect bank robbery on Wall Street. Denzell Washington is the cop in charge, and the bank's owner, Christopher Plummer, wants something in a safe deposit box safeguarded. He calls fixer Jodie Foster, and she calls in a lot of favors for a private talk with Owen.

It's a riddle wrapped within an enigma within a caper film. Once upon a time, director King Vidor said he made one for the studio, and they let him make one for himself. This movie was made by director Spike Lee for the studio, and it's a beauty: not only is the story compelling, its character ambiguities a constant compelling series of mysteries that keep you watching. He's directing a great cast, and set them doing their work, each very competent, each tugging and pulling the movie in his or her own direction. It's a structure like Fred Zinneman's version of THE DAY OF THE JACKAL.... except that in that movie, you knew DeGaulle was not going to get shot. In this one, you don't even know that.

What happens when you give a stellar cast nothing to do?

[paxatron · 9 April 2006]

Let me just lay all my cards on the table, so there are no surprises later in the review: "Inside Man" is frustratingly bad, Spike Lee was the wrong director for this, but I was able to walk away still a fan of Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, and Jodie Foster. This is a bizarre film, unnecessarily complicated, that assembles a top-notch cast, puts them into a tense situation with all the players in place, and then has nothing to do with them. It's like the writer forgot that you needed a third act; it's all rising action with no denouement.

Washington plays Det. Frazier, a hostage negotiator who acts, literally, as if this is his first case. He has the obligatory younger partner (Chiwetel Ejiofor, "Serenity") who exists so Frazier can explain his theories and the obligatory ESU commander who wants to go in and shoot everyone (Willem Dafoe, sadly underused). Owen plays the bank robber, about whom frustratingly nothing is known except what he said into the camera in the trailer. Finally, Foster plays some sort of player amongst the Powers That Be who walks into the mayor's office, demands an update, and is given "every possible courtesy", etc. She serves no purpose whatsoever, not even in a clichéd action movie type of way like Dafoe and Ejiofor. The performances are the only good part of the movie, but there are times when you can tell that the actors wished they were in a better film. They're giving it their all, and they're getting no help from anyone else involved.

Spike Lee is up to his usual tricks here, which, in this type of movie, is a very bad thing. The details of the heist itself I won't disclose. I can't. The action is, at best, vague - extremely brief scenes of vaults opening, hole-digging, hostage roughing up, and the usual bank-robber stuff are all the details we really get. It is also inter cut with scenes of the hostages recalling the heist; their recollections serve no purpose except to confuse the audience further. "Inside Man" is curiously racist: the white crooks rough up the black bank customers, the white Foster and the mayor order around Washington, the white cops mistake a Sikh for an Arab and beat him, and even a Jewish hostage was not only a lawyer, but has a nephew who is a jeweler. Washington and Ejiofor are given no flaws whatsoever and are seen mostly being pushed around by everyone else in the movie. The action repeatedly grinds to a halt so Lee can insert quirky little subplots involving video games, Washington's much younger girlfriend and random Albanian women. They're at best unnecessary, at worst, disastrous. If we had been given a director with more focus, there is the feeling that this could have been a lean, mean thriller. But it drags and drags and drags and when we get to the end, we understand why the film stalled for so long: the ending is about as climatic as erectile dysfunction.

"Inside Man" looked like it had it all - great cast, good concept, reputable director, but the end result is a near-disaster. It's like someone threw "Dog Day Afternoon" into a blender, drank it, and vomited it back onto the screen. As I stumbled out of the theater, deprived of my money and time, I cursed the screen gods who thought to tease me with such an improbably bad movie. I thought back to a better day, when a movie at least knew what was going on even if the audience didn't, gave us characters who seemed like actual people and served actual purposes to the plot, so that even if we had to wait until the Big Twist to answer our questions, we at least had a reason to still care.

Stalemate

[billion_mucks · 6/10 · 3 November 2007]

Although it sets off pretty well, with Clive Owen talking straight to the camera saying he has the perfect plan to rob a bank, that he is 100 percent sure that his plan is flawless. We always see movies with bank robberies being the criminals risky and edgy, and repeating sometimes the same techniques and same lines. Well with the new optic of this film, one is excited. He planned it so precisely, so extensively he believes there is no possible flail. Well, this declaration is the only thing that the movie can claim of distinguished.

Following this interesting commence, the movie will set with a boring brain fight between the chief police and the principal robber. Different "interests" for an account of the bank set an uninteresting premise where the script just doesn't go anywhere. I repeat, it promises more than whatever it delivers. The final and the twist are somewhat good, but doesn't surprise as the story doesn't introduce us to the characters correctly and we simply don't care. It appears to be a distinguished, different, excellent film. Avoid it, because it just isn't so.

A mess of a movie

[invisibleman-1 · 1/10 · 13 January 2007]

After painfully watching the last boring minutes of Inside Man I just wanted to look at IMDb to verify that I had just seen one of the worst movies of 2006. Then I saw its rating ... 7.5 ?!?!? What ?!?! After reading through all those comments I'm finally convinced that IMDb is badly invaded by professional movie pushers. To make it worse, this film is additionally pushed by Spike Lee & Denzel Washington fanatics.

This film has many problems: the script is awful, without any tension or suspense. Denzel plays the same over-the-top super-cop as many of his movies before (I won't watch Denzel movies in the near future). Jodie's character is laughable, she just doesn't add anything to the movie except her name. Chris Plummer has the most notable moments in the movie but he also suffers from the bad script.

The music score is unnerving and way to much in most of the scenes. And Mr. Lee's direction is screams Scorsese at you with all those angles, camera moves and steadycam shots. They don't help the story but make the movie look strangely dated, like a movie of the 90s.