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'Inside Man': Hollywood with street cred

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Big-Hollywood-movie handsome and sprinkled with big Hollywood names, "Inside Man" nonetheless calls itself "a Spike Lee Joint." Justifiably, as it turns out.

The setup for Lee's new movie is bank-heist basic. Clive Owen plays a cool-headed criminal mastermind along the lines of Alan Rickman in "Die Hard." He and a small band of gunmen take over a Wall Street bank and seize about 50 hostages, whom they force to don the same coveralls and white masks they're wearing. Thus, it quickly becomes impossible to tell the hostages from the hostage-takers. (Question: How did they know how many smalls, mediums and extra-larges to bring?)

Universal Pictures

'Inside Man'

The verdict: Lee goes Hollywood with style and a sparkling cast.

Director: Spike Lee
Starring: Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Plummer, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Run time: 129 minutes
Release date: March 24, 2006
Rating: R for language and some violent images.
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Inside Spike Lee
"Flick Chick" Leslie Streeter offers five special films from the director's catalog.

On the web
Official movie site
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Anyway, expert negotiator Denzel Washington — who has something of a cloud over his head about a missing $140,000 — and his partner, Chiwetel Ejiofor of "Four Brothers," are brought in, and a familiar scenario unfurls. The streets are cordoned off. Snipers take their places in neighboring buildings. The media descends. A rowdy crowd forms.

Meanwhile, Washington and Owen mess with each other's minds and take each other's measure. A week from now, "I'll be in a hot tub with six girls named Amber and Tiffany," Owen taunts, and Washington replies, "You'll be in a shower with guys named Jesus and Jamal."

However, when, at the behest of socially prominent bank president Christopher Plummer, Manhattan power broker Jodie Foster shows up in a sleek power suit and slinky ponytail, it becomes clear Owen's operation is about more than the loot in the vault. "Inside Man" is bold enough to reference the film it most obviously calls to mind. "We've all seen 'Dog Day Afternoon,'" Washington tells Owen as they haggle over the usual escape plane. "You're stalling."

It's also nimble enough to shift effortlessly from frightening to funny in a matter of moments. Newcomer Russell Gewirtz may have written certain racial and ethnic tensions into his plot, but you can be sure Lee amplifies them, most especially when it comes to his melting-pot hostages. "I'm a Sikh," a freed man insists with a practiced resignation after a cop calls him an Arab and tears off his turban. Later, unable to decipher the vaguely Eastern European conversation they can hear thanks to microphones buried in the hostages' pizzas, Washington, Ejiofor and police officer Willem Dafoe agree in frustration that any given hot-dog vendor on any given Big Apple street corner could probably translate for them — if only one was at hand.

Washington hasn't been this loosey-goosey, this relaxed and free-flowing in some time. One minute, he's going hard-nosed toe to toe with Owen; the next, he's joshing around with a scared little-old-lady hostage who's just been let go. And, perhaps not so coincidentally, his small mustache and shaven head slightly suggest New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Owen chortles/sneers his villainy as if he were overjoyed to have dodged the 007 straightjacket, while Foster flashes a megawatt crocodile smile whether she's talking to the New York City mayor or Washington's lowly detective (these matters are above his pay grade, she sniffs). Plummer, as always, makes every raised eyebrow count. And Ejiofor again demonstrates the versatility that's served him in movies as diverse as "Amistad" and "Dirty Pretty Things."

Unfortunately, either Gewirtz doesn't know how to end his screenplay or Lee doesn't know when to put down his camera. The deflating last half-hour offers more endings than "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." And the soundtrack is annoyingly obvious — a vestige of the preachy Lee from "Bamboozled" and "Summer of Sam."

That said, "Inside Man" is an impressive picture. Nobody's on automatic here, least of all the director, who's probably delivered the most impersonal — but smoothly Hollywood-style professional — movie of his career. Lee proves he can play nice with all those skittish studio execs and, at the same time, give them the street cred those sheltered boys (and girls) have always longed for.