Inside Man (2006)
Directed by Spike Lee
When an armed, masked gang enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.
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What critics say influenced Inside Man
This entertaining trick requires the moral sophistication evident in his moody and underrated 25th Hour and is reminiscent of two classic New York crime films from the 1970s -- Dog Day Afternoon, referred to by Frazier, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Spike Lee's riveting bank heist/hostage film breaks all the rules and comes across as a reworking of a very tired genre that started with Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon.
The script, written by first-time screenwriter Russell Gewirtz, is a clever little potboiler that combines the keep-you-guessing psychological element of Alfred Hitchcock with the socio-political tension of Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon” (one of Lee’s favorite films, and mentioned by Washington in this film).
Multiple references are made throughout to Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975).
It also pays tribute to the Sidney Lumet classics Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico.
As much a mystery as it is a suspense-thriller, this bank-heist film combines elements from both "Dog Day Afternoon" and "The Usual Suspects."
It also pays tribute to the Sidney Lumet classics Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico.
Inside Man drops that film's title ( Serpico 's, too), decking Frazier out in a cheap white suit and raffish hat that segue brilliantly into the closing shot of a black man in a wife-beater, standing in front of a vanity while in the foreground, a luscious lady in recline dangles that hat off some manicured, impatient toes.
It turns out that this isn't a heist film after all, but a mash-up between Cotton Comes to Harlem, the laid-back cop classic that launched the blaxploitation genre in 1970, and an unmade sequel to The Sound of Music, where Christopher Plummer's Captain Von Trapp returns to the motherland and goes into business with the Nazis.
Spike Lee's The Inside Man puts a fresh spin on the heist/hostage thriller, while retaining enough of the cynical New York City attitude that made Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) so memorable.
In fact, I bet he watched Dog Day Afternoon , Marathon Man and a Ocean's Eleven in one evening and said, “Hey, I could make my own bank robbery-diamond/Nazi-heist movie.”
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In fact, I bet he watched Dog Day Afternoon , Marathon Man and a Ocean's Eleven in one evening and said, “Hey, I could make my own bank robbery-diamond/Nazi-heist movie.”
One could argue that a cast with this much wattage hasn't been assembled since Twilight (Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon, Reese Witherspoon).
It's as entertaining a heist movie as Dog Day Afternoon (1975) or Quick Change (1990).
His plan for getting in and out of the bank is pretty much right outta Quick Change but with less Bill Murray-style wiseacreing (Washington’s detective prefers to invoke Dog Day Afternoon), and his real reason for attacking the bank of course has nothing to do with money... or not much, anyway, cuz this is a postmodern heist film that knows we’ve all seen every heist film ever made and need more than a merely greedy bad guy to keep our interest.
This entertaining trick requires the moral sophistication evident in his moody and underrated 25th Hour and is reminiscent of two classic New York crime films from the 1970s -- Dog Day Afternoon, referred to by Frazier, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Make no mistake, Lee is still in his typically outspoken form, he's still using film in the manner I described when reviewing 25th Hour -- "like a wild-eyed protestor dousing himself with gasoline and striking a match."
I like all the main players in this one and thoroughly enjoyed the last Spike Lee film that I saw, 25th Hour.
This is also a welcome return to form for director Spike Lee, who's been in a slump for a few years, whose last watchable film was, arguably, "25th Hour" in 2002.
Director Spike Lee ("25th Hour," "She Hate Me") seems to be swinging between his own less and less compelling projects and studio fare such as this, and he just about hits this one out of the park.
It’s a refreshing movie that gets your adrenaline racing and continues the potential Spike Lee reignited with 25th Hour four years ago.
He spends some time with a couple of the hostages (mostly to beat on them and impress them with his virtuosity: "Anyone else here smarter than me?"), in particular, a small boy who plays a handheld video game, "Kill Dat Nigga" (the visual and plot basics recall the game in Clockers).
But Inside Man is nothing less than a Spike Lee joint, a well-mannered older brother to his uneven Clockers (1995).
When I did promotions in Baltimore, I helped champion his first film, "She's Gotta Have It."
Spike Lee's ("She's Gotta Have It") newest "joint" revives the now stale bank heist-hostage situation genre (a Hollywood staple) once made with glee in such films as "Dog Day Afternoon."
Ever since "She's Gotta Have It" in 1986, Spike Lee has been recognized as a director who likes to get below the surface of a subject, even if it means making his audience uncomfortable.
But then this impossibility is at the heart of the film, and gives it an edgy interest, a touch of suspense after all, and links it to other Lee works like Do the Right Thing and She’s Gotta Have It.
Directed by Spike Lee (yeah, that’s right: Jungle Fever, 25th Hour), films with a premise like Inside Man are usually the kind of Thomas Crown Affair movie for 50-year+ old actors that seem to drag on for hours without end and without purpose.
In Lee's New York - on show in films such as Do The Right Thing and Jungle Fever - people rarely settle their differences.
I would say this may not be Lee's best film -- it's clearly a more impersonal, less passionate work than "Do the Right Thing" or "Jungle Fever" -- but it's his most complete.
But then Inside Man turned out to be best thing I've seen Spike Lee do in years, maybe since Do the Right Thing.
Like Do the Right Thing and 25th Hour , the movie centers around a specific New York City community, only this time it has sprung up around an act of violence rather than an organic place of residence.
In Lee's New York - on show in films such as Do The Right Thing and Jungle Fever - people rarely settle their differences.
Frazier orders pizza from the burned-down parlor in Do the Right Thing.
That his 1989 masterpiece, "Do The Right Thing," was not nominated for Best Picture is one of the biggest crimes in Oscar history and "Malcolm X" is one of the greatest film biographies ever made.
I would say this may not be Lee's best film -- it's clearly a more impersonal, less passionate work than "Do the Right Thing" or "Jungle Fever" -- but it's his most complete.
(When he makes films like 2000's Bamboozled, they can be forgiven.)
It's Lee's interest in the small moments that makes The Inside Man above average, and his best film since Summer of Sam (1999).
(His depiction of Italians as spaghetti-sucking gigolos in Summer of Sam is also a good example.)
Lee has had his share misses over the last few years, with films like "She Hate Me" and "Girl 6" taking some of the glory from "He Got Game" and "Summer of Sam."
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As much a mystery as it is a suspense-thriller, this bank-heist film combines elements from both "Dog Day Afternoon" and "The Usual Suspects."
It's a genre that has been attempted by everyone including David Mamet, whose love of keeping his audience in the dark reached its apotheosis in Heist (2001).