Its 7.5 rating at IMDB was a tell tale sign and made Robbert and me decide to watch the movie Inside Man in Utrecht’s Rembrandt theatre.
The storyline of Inside Man (2006, directed by Spike Lee) is at first sight straightforward. Like Ocean’s 11, it is centered around the ever so popular perfect bank robbery theme, but many things are different right from the start.
The main bad guy, the bank robber Dalton Russell (played by Clive Owen, to me a blend of Nicolas Cage and Russell Crow), opens the movie by telling into the camera that he’s locked up in a prison cell.
From there on events unfold mostly in chronological order, but you keep wondering for a long time what the true reason behind the bank robbery actually is. Inside Man tells the story of detective Keith Frazier (played by Denzel Washington) that has to talk down the bank robber after his perfect heist spirals into a hostage situation. The result is an intelligent plot enriched by a star cast: Jody Foster, Christopher Plummer and Willem Dafoe have supporting roles.
I have no complaints about the camera work either, it is very vivid and right on the action. There’re only two, in my opinion, less successful shots of which the added value escapes me. One in which Frazier stands still and the background moves after a hostage is killed, and the other one the overly long shot of Frazier descending a spiral staircase: a dramatic angle facing straight up.
[Warning, spoiler ahead] At the end of the movie you may at first think there’s one unexplained thing. How did the bank robbers know that the secret safe deposit box existed and contained the diamonds? Notice, near the end of the movie, the old man among the bank robbers waiting in the car for Frazier. This old man is the Jewish rabbi, who is one of the customers present during the bank robbery. He knew about the Nazi past of the owner of the safe deposit box.
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