Spike Lee Retrospective: "Inside Man"

Spike Lee is best known for racially and politically charged dramas like Do the Right Thing, He Got Game, Da 5 Bloods, and BlacKkKlansman.  While these are some of the films that he might be best remembered for, he was not above more studio-friendly fare.  In 2006, he also made one of the slickest heist films of that decade with Inside Man, starring his frequent collaborator Denzel Washington (who also stars in his newest film Highest 2 Lowest) as a New York City detective tasked to negotiate with a gang of thieves led by Clive Owen after they take hostages in a Wall Street bank.  

The film begins with Clive Owen in full frame, explaining that he has executed the perfect bank heist and wants to tell us about it; the rest of the film follows Washington (along with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Willem Dafoe) as they attempt to figure out what Owen's plan is as it unfolds. As an added wrinkle, the bank's proprietor (played by Christopher Plummer) has a secret hidden in that particular branch and hires a fixer (played by Jodie Foster) to protect it.  Yes, these two plots are related.  No, I won't tell you how.  

In many ways, Inside Man is Lee's most approachable film.  It has several great actors doing great work, and is a standard Hollywood mystery, with many twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end.  Washington has a blast playing cat and mouse –or rather cat and two other cats– with Owen and Foster, and it might be one of the most Denzel Washington performances of his career complete with his signature cadence of speech and laugh turned all the way up.  

Owen, for his part, might be the coolest bank robber of the century so far.  His character is calm, cool, and collected, and even when he appears to lose control, you can tell that there is some motive behind it. He claims his plan is foolproof, and it's a pleasure watching him move the pieces around his chessboard for the whole film, even those who don't understand that they are indeed his pieces and especially those who think he might be one of theirs.

Jodie Foster is similarly cool, an amoral fixer who cares only about what her client pays her to care about.  She has the ear of everyone in a position of power in the city, and they all hate her because she's achieved this via doing favours and gathering dirt.  Her interactions with the mayor, in particular, are a blast. 

Christopher Plummer, already a legend by this time, only has to show up and be Christopher Plummer, but he was a legend for a reason. There's a great scene early in the film when his character learns that the bank has been taken over, and there's a nearly imperceptible shift in his face and demeanour as he realizes what that means.  It's the kind of scene that should be studied in acting classes everywhere. 

Inside Man is, in short, a blast.  It's the kind of mystery thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end, not only about what the thieves plan really is, but about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are at all.  It's also the kind that will reward you when you rewatch it, and catch hints and clues you missed the first time around. It might be the least Spike Lee Spike Lee film, but he and cinematographer Matthew Libatique make sure that it is still very much a Spike Lee film, at least in tone and feel. They include the trademark dolly shot, different camera techniques to highlight various characters' states of mind, and multiple film stocks and processes to highlight different time frames in the story.  

All of this to say that it is still very much a Spike Lee film, even if it's not a Spike Lee joint. It may not be the kind of film that will be among the first considered when we eventually assess Lee's legacy, but Inside Man remains one of the best-cast and slickest heist films of the 2000s.