March
2006
Inside Man - a review by amberlita5
Get the big bag of popcorn and settle in. Spike Lee has gone mainstream and it works better than anything else I’ve seen so far this year, though admittedly, I think that might only include Something New.
The movie stands the one tried and true test of popcorn entertainment: the indiglo watch. Sitting in a dark theater, wondering why the fans are blowing cold air when it’s 20 degrees outside, wishing you had gone to the bathroom before the movie started…do you check your watch during one of the film’s lulls to see how much longer till you can go release your bladder? Not in this film. There’s a moment late in the film where it appears Denzel’s going to stop a disaster from happening, but events accelerate anyway and it becomes clear the film’s nearly over. I was baffled. I checked my watch during a crucial scene and thought “Damn! There’s only 20 minutes left!”. I wanted more.
This film is all movement and little action. There’s seldom a scene where some gear isn’t moving or some plotline progressing. But make no mistake: this is Dog Day Afternoon, not Heat. This is the thinker’s action flick. The set-up of the film is Dalton Russell speaking to the camera and by what he says, “pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself”, you know you need to listen and start putting pieces of this puzzle together from the start. Think The Negotiator meets The Usual Suspects. You know the twist is coming and some might find that lazy and recycled, but I found it refreshing that my filmmaker wasn’t going to pull the rug out at the last minute and wipe out everything I’d previously though was true in the film. Instead, Lee invites us to think through this series of events as they progress, and he won’t cheat us. He’ll let us see things and know things throughout, not all at once in the end to confuse us into a second viewing. He expects his audience to be smart, so be prepared to pay attention.
Kudos to Lee for making both a perpetrator and a negotiator who are both protagonists and kudos to him for the Willam Dafoe character, who is nothing remarkable except to say that he is unremarkable. He is potentially set up as a character only there to argue and make things difficult for our negotiator. Thank the lord Lee avoids making him into the deputy from Die Hard and chooses instead to have him serve as his role would be in actuality, which is understated and there to organize and assist and take control of his forces when he needs to.
One weakness: Jodie Foster. She plays her character to perfection but ultimately her character is there for no other reason than to reveal some things we wouldn’t be able to know without her bizarre involvement in the situation. Unless the main character just came out and said it, but that’s not only unbefitting his character but would also just be a clunky speech all together. Unfortunately, in practice during the film she only baffles. Who is she and why is she so powerful? Why exactly is she there? How is she getting the things she wants? What did she actually accomplish and what was she planning to accomplish? It really doesn’t work too well.
I purposefully avoided actually talking about either Denzel Washington or Clive Owen. Was there really any doubt? Denzel is cocky, Owen broods…not a whole lot of acting going on here. But they have great chemistry as actors even just over the phone and their circumstantial relationship never feels forced even up until the final moment of the film when one speaks to the other without words. I dare you not to smile.
