INSIDE MAN

This is a curiously unengaging and unsatisfying bank heist thriller.  Superficially it has all the right ingredients: a terrific cast, an intriguing plot, a quality director (Spike Lee), good dialogue. But yet... 

As usual Roger Ebert gets to the heart of the problem: "Here is a thriller that's curiously reluctant to get to the payoff, and when it does, we see why: we can't accept the motive and method of the bank robbery, we can't believe in one character and can't understand another."

Yes, about halfway into the film I realised that my attention was beginning to wander, due to the lack of urgency.  Part of this is down to the fact that we realise quite early that the hostages aren't in any real danger. 

Given the lack of dramatic tension my attention focused on what the robbers up to, and how  they are going to escape. 

We soon learn the answer to the first mystery: they are targeting one of the safe deposit boxes.  It holds some incriminating evidence about Arthur Case (played by Christopher Plummer), the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the bank being robbed, relating to how he made a fortune in Switzerland during World War II as a banker to the Nazis.

Usually in this type of film there is some pleasure to be had in the battle of wits between the two protagonists, here the NYPD hostage negotiator Frazier (Denzel Washington) and Russell, the chief robber (Clive Owen).  Unfortunately Russell is not only a highly implausible character, he's also extremely dull (he's no Hans Gruber for sure).  It doesn't help that Clive Owen is not one of my favourite actors, or that we learn nothing about him during the course of the entire film.

Eventually we get to find out how the thieves escape, and to be fair it's OK.  But the film does need a dramatically satisfying climax, which should be the evil banker getting his comeuppance, although it has to be said that Case doesn't come across as especially nasty (compared with say Laurence Olivier's character in 'Marathon Man').  

(And 2006 does seem a bit late for this Nazi stuff to have resonance - how old is Case for goodness sake?)

Anyhow the film botches the climax.  Although Frazier wants to get to the bottom of what was in the safe deposit box neither he nor anyone else seems that offended by how Case made his money, so that Frazier's final confrontation with Case lacks dramatic weight.  And weirdly this is not the moment when Frazier reveals that he is getting a War Crimes Unit to investigate Case, but instead this happens in the next scene, between Frazier and Jodie Foster's character, Madeleine White.

Oh yes, I've forgotten to mention that Jodie Foster is in this film.  Well that's because her character could be removed without making any difference - she plays a laughably implausible character, a 'fixer' who doesn't seem to fix anything yet somehow persuades Case that she has. 

Other fine actors who are wasted in all this are Willem Dafoe, woefully miscast as a NYPD captain, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. 

Denzel is playing someone he could play in his sleep, but he is still the main reason to watch this.

All in all it's rather sad to note that this is Spike Lee's highest grossing film.

RATING: x Find Something Better To Do