When four people walk into a bank dressed in boiler suits, masks and shades, it looks like an ordinary bank robbery, but when they drag everyone down to the vaults, get them to strip and dress them up in the same boiler suits and shades - it is apparent that something else is going on. They make no effort to conceal to the outside world that a robbery is happening and seem content to let the cops congregating at the door to do their thing. Detective Frazier (Washington) smells a rat and suspects that the robbers (led by Clive Owen) are after something more than money. When he is approached by pushy power broker Madeline (Foster), who works for the bank's owner (Plummer), asking could she talk to the robbers over a 'delicate matter', it is obvious there is more than just money at stake.
Interesting re-working of the heist movie, Inside Man keeps three steps ahead of a guessing audience until that final twist. Like Sidney Lumet in Dog Day Afternoon (a movie referred to here), director Spike Lee wastes no time in cutting to the chase and piles clever twists on top of new ideas: inter-cutting the heist with the interviews Washington and his partner Chiwetel Ejiofor conduct with the hostages after the robbery goes down. The performances are top notch too; Washington's normally too-cool-for-school delivery usually grates but he's on form here, Foster is great and Owen shows Hugo Weaving's V that you can still act even though you are perpetually hidden in mask for the duration of a film. Where it falls down is the final act where it is drawn out far too long as Lee tries to tie up too many loose ends. That said, Inside Man is still a superior heist movie and welcome addition to the genre.
