Inside Man (DVD)

`Inside Man' is a good film. It's essentially a standard hostage situation thriller that wasn't over the top. From the moment it begins, there is clearly an urban vibe; the shots of Manhattan, not to mention the movie being billed as "A Spike Lee joint" give it a grittier tone. Do not let these minor touches fool you; as the movie progresses, it helps to not go in with preconceived notions of the typical Spike Lee movie. The camera shot changes every five seconds. Normally this would just annoy me, but the editor managed to do this without wasting a single one of those five second shots, and with great accompanying music it was actually one of my favorite opening sequences ever.

Clive Owen is great as, a "not your everyday bank robber," he's becoming one of my favorite actors. Denzel Washington played the lead role of the perceptive (if slightly jaded) police-detective. He gives us an incredibly performance in spite of the fact that he's playing a cop for what seams like the 11th time in his past 12 films. It's an interesting story with some decent twists and better than average dialogue. Jodie Foster is disappointingly underused as Madeline, so to with Christopher Plummer as Arthur. Willem Dafoe flounders in the background, it looks like he doesn't know why he's there. Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers one of the better performances, yet not his best from his other recent film. The dialogue in the movie is good. There's some humorous and great lines that come out of the character's mouths.

What I liked about Inside Man was the style it was made. It is choppy, but not so much, 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.