Inside Man (2006)

Directed by: Spike Lee

Written by: Russell Gewirtz

Stars: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster

A man named Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) sits in an unidentified cell and narrates in medias res how he has committed the perfect robbery. In New York, masked robbers, dressed as painters and using variants of the name "Steve" as aliases, seize control of a Manhattan bank and take the patrons and employees hostage. They divide the hostages into groups and hold them in different rooms, forcing them to don painters clothes identical to their own. The robbers rotate the hostages among various rooms and occasionally insert themselves covertly into the groups. They also take turns working on an unspecified project involving demolishing the floor in one of the bank's storage rooms.

Police surround the bank, and Detectives Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and Bill Mitchell (Chiwitel Ejiofor) take charge of the negotiations. Russell, the leader of the robbers, demands food, and the police supply them with pizzas whose boxes include listening devices. The bugs pick up a language which the police identify as Albanian. They discover that the conversations are in fact propaganda recordings of deceased Albanian leader Enver Hoxha, implying that the robbers anticipated the attempted surveillance.

When Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), chairman of the board of directors and founder of the bank, learns of the robbery taking place, he hires "fixer" Madeleine White (Jodie Foster) to try to protect the contents of his safe deposit box within the bank. White arranges a conversation with Russell, who allows her to enter the bank and inspect the contents of the box, which include documents from Nazi Germany. Russell implies that Case started his bank with money that he received from the Nazis for unspecified services, resulting in the deaths of many Jewish people during World War II. White tells Russell that Case will pay him a substantial sum if he destroys the contents of the box.

Director Spike Lee has made a well crafted crime thriller centered around a bank heist and the negotiations made by Washington to save the hostages. The situation is reminiscent of another Denzel flick, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3; also centered around a hostage situation. At one point, Frazier references "Dog Day Afternoon", which is also a similar film centered around a bank heist. The cinematography by Matthew Libatique is exquisite. He filmed the scenes with Russell on a Steadi-cam, to make it look like he was in control. In contrast, Frazier and his crew are hand-held, designed to display the character's confusion. The film also features a few scenes where Frazier and Mitchell are interrogating several hostages, sort of like a flash-forward sequence. There was more contrast in those scenes and less color temperature, to make it look like a flashback. Performances by the A-list actors are fantastic all around. Washington is great as Frazier, who is desperate to make Detective First Grade that he will negotiate with the ringleader of the heist, and Clive Owen as the ringleader, and he plays a nasty role as the villain.