Inside Man

It's my birthday today, so I wanted to write about one of my favorite films from the past 5 years. The biggest surprise of this film was who wrote it. Spike Lee returns in all his glory. He delivers a great script in a superb fashion. Denzel is great as always, along with top notch performances by Clive Owen (no big surprise there), Willem Dafoe, Jodie Foster, and Christopher Plummer who all do their jobs perfectly. This is a heist movie, but not the ordinary kind. It's smart, clever, and unlike Oceans it's not that humorous. It's all business. Clive plays a thief named Dalton. He and his crew execute the perfect robbery, but escaping is not in their plan. They want to get caught. Well, to a degree anyway. Hostage negotiator Keith Frazier (Denzel) is on top of this. He is the only one allowed to breech to doors which have been locked by the robbers. Little does he know he is being used by Dalton while thinking he is making head way. We quickly find out this heist is not at all about money. The way the opening scene is filmed sets up a brilliant thought provoking script. Dalton is giving an on camera testimony from his prison cell. So with that it flashes back to the beginning and we wonder why he got caught and if he succeeded at any of his goals. His crack team are dressed from head to toe in painters coveralls with hoods. They wear white masks and sunglasses the entire time. The hostages and threats by Dalton keep the coppers at bay. Eventually we are informed what this heist is really about. Leverage. What? Why? and Who? quickly become our focus. From there the movie turns as thrilling as can be and as an audience we are torn who to root for. The Detective who is being targeted by the Internal Affairs, or Dalton, who is so smart and clever, we just hope his reasons are worth it. As a present to myself I am going to watch this film again today and celebrate its absolute brilliance.

NBM rates Inside Man - A Cinematic Work of Art

Buy It!!