Inside Job

Would you believe we had time to catch a movie while in Mammoth?  If I told you what the condo situation was like, you may understand our need to vacate the premesis for an evening at the cinema, but I think part of the reason was the compelling cast of the new mystery-thriller Inside Man.  Being tops of the box-office really justifies the glittery marquee, but being directed by none other than Spike Lee will also promote the film from Hollywood fluff, to something perhaps a little more meaningful.

Let's comment first on the cast.  Headed up by a dialed-in Denzel Washington and supported strongly by the likes of Clive Owen and Jodie Foster, every actor from lead to extra does a commendable job making Mr. Lee's New York a living and breathing community filled with racial and societal tensions as well as communal identification.  The three leads, however, do a bang-up job in portraying just what they are.  Mr. Washington's motivated and ambitious detective is properly direct and passionate about his job, Ms. Foster's "Ms. Fix-it" is to -the-point and disarmingly charming, and Mr. Owen's criminal is chillingly calculated.  There's not a performance in here unnoticed and although no one may win an Oscar for this film, it's a great way to start out the year.

The overall thematics of the film tend to jump all over the place.  While on the surface you have your by-the-numbers heist film, there are aspects that Mr. Lee touches upon from time to time you may or may not notice.  The jabs at intolerance and an over-the-top video game may be less than subtle, but it's the situations he frames these statements in that makes them all the more interesting.  While you become wrapped up in the overall mystery of why the criminals commit their heist, you also become enveloped in the world this movie is set in and the people involved.  You begin to understand their motivations and also, perhaps, their fears.  It's a much more subtle hand than Mr. Lee has presented in the past, and it's a welcome change.

What we have in the end is one of the better movies so far this year.  I found it to be quite entertaining and possibly one to be found in many collections.  If I were to compare it to any recent film, it would go hand in hand with Michael Mann's Collateral as a modern thought-induced crime drama.  While some of these films (take Heat for example) tend to be bloated and "important," Inside Man doesn't pretend to be anything but the heist film it is on the surface.

Overall Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars