Inside Man is Amazing

Cafe Society
1

Wow. Definitely one of the best movies I’ve seen all year (as in the past 12 months), and I just watched V for Vendetta last week (I liked this better). I’m not even a Spike Lee fan, but this was both a New York postcard and a smart as all hell heist flick (exactly what Heist, the show, isn’t). Practically perfect in every way, and way funnier than it had any right to be. To boot, Lee managed to do all this (slight spoiler)


without the extreme violence we’ve all grown accustomed to, and I have no doubt that was intentional.

2

Thank you so much for posting right away. I’ve been holding my breath. I’ll see anything with Jodie in it, but it’s been so long since I wasn’t disappointed in a movie.

3

Really? A Spike Lee movie that’s actually good? Hmmm. I guess I’ll have to hold my nose and buy ticket for this! It’s getting great reviews…

4

I saw it tonight. It was definitely more intelligent than the average heist thriller. It was interesting to see Jodie Foster playing a ballbreaking bitch. Has she ever played a villain before? Good performances from Clive Owen and Denzel Washington as well. It didn’t really seem like a Spike Lee Joint execpt for a few small scenes like when they were interviwing the Sikh guy.

It was also cool to see A hostage-standoff movie where the baddies get away (without even hurting anybody, no less).

5

When Spike Lee is doing his own stuff, he can sometimes take himself too seriously. He makes masterpieces, but some of them are topheavy and preachy. When he’s shooting someone else’s script, he’s not so invested in the material, and his skills take over.
*
Inside Man* is not a true Spike Lee Joint, but it’s about the best “popcorn flick” I’m likely to see this year.

6

To echo what lissener said, Spike Lee is a very good director and a look at IMDb (I knew this beforehand) shows titles such as Summer of Sam and 25th Hour.

7

I just saw the movie. While watching I was thinking that it was an enjoyable, well-made and well-acted movie. But towards the end, and after the movie ended I started thinking WTF?

[spoiler]Was Clive Owen’s character supposed to be a bank robber or some Nazi avenger? If he was just a bank robber going for diamonds, why was he getting on his high horse about what Christopher Plummer did?

If he was a Nazi avenger, why was he making money out of the heist? I assume he ended up with a lot of diamonds.

What was he planning on doing with the incriminating folder? And, if he left the incriminating diamond to be found by Denzel, why didn’t he leave the incriminating folder too?

Because, if he kept the folder so that Christopher Plummer wouldn’t go after him, it was silly to leave the diamond, because if the diamond incriminated Christopher Plummer, then the folder Clive Owen was holding onto wasn’t very useful as a blackmail device anymore.

Was the main purpose of the heist to steal some money from a bad guy, or was the main purpose to expose the bad guy’s past deeds? Or was it to retrieve some diamonds that belonged to Jews that were somehow related to the Rabbi in the movie?

Also, how did he know so much about what Christopher Plummer did, and all the details about which safety deposit box had the goodies. Did he use someone from the inside? Who? Is this related to the title of the movie?

If not, what does the title refer to?

[/spoiler]

Anyway, so many questions. I might have to see the movie again, unless Dopers can shed some light on some of these questions.

8

<snip>
[/spoiler]

I don’t know how much I can help, but here are my thoughts.

I figured that Clive Owen and his friends were robbers already, since it doesn’t seem likely that anyone would choose a bank robbery with hostages as their first heist and do it so well. Then they met the rabbi somehow and he knew about the guy and the diamonds, and Clive Owen thought if they were going to do a big score, might as well be from someone who didn’t deserve the money and couldn’t really go to the police about it’s loss.

I’m not sure why he didn’t leave the envelope in the safety deposit box, unless it was to mess with Christopher Plummer’s head and make him think that his secret was safe.

Overall, I thought it was an amazing movie. I would maybe go see it again at theaters, or at least I’ll probably get it on DVD.

9

Yeah, that movie was good stuff. I’ve always loved Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster (although Jodie wasn’t at her best, she was still entertaining). Lots of small little moments that were funny. It was a bit long, though, and (spoiler-boxed just in case)

suffered a bit from the LOTR: ROTK syndrome (you think it’s over, but then there’s One More Scene). I would’ve been happy with some of the “false” endpoints.

Best movie I’ve seen so far in 2006 (although I’m selling it short by saying that–the only other movies I’ve seen are Pink Panther and Ultraviolet).

I loved the scenes where

Denzel and the Operative (from Serenity and Dirty Pretty Things) were interviewing the women with big boobs, and their eyes kept straying downwards. “(paraphrased) Arrested for violating Section 34DD”. Hee!

I did have a question, though, about the ending:

So, did Clive Owen leave all the diamonds with Denzel? Or just that one? My impression was that he left everything with Denzel, since they were all incredulous that he came out with nothing, and he was pontificating about how “Respect was the Ultimate Coin” or something to that effect. My wife thinks that he only slipped that one diamond to Denzel.

10

[spoiler]He left only the ring (which had been stolen from the French-Jewish family) in the safe deposit box and kept all the rest of the jewels as profit- only one of which he slipped into Denzel’s pocket…perhaps as a gift that Denzel could use as an engagement ring for his girlfriend (remember, Owen had previously lectured Denzel about getting married when Denzel had been inside the bank).

The reason the police thought nothing else was missing was because they didn’t know what had originally been inside Christopher Plummer’s safe deposit box. They couldn’t have known the gems were missing if they hadn’t known they ever existed in the first place.[/spoiler]

11

I thought it was very well-made and enjoyable, and if the story and ending were a bit more tight and had less of that out-of-place faux morality, it would have been a great movie.

Overall, I agree with Ebert’s point :

Regarding the title, what do you think it refers to?

12

This one was too preachy at times too.

Besides that, overall, Spike Lee did an excellent job with the screenplay he was given. Great movie-making.

13

She played one hard-up nun in Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and played it superbly.

14

I loved it except for the camera work - it got so shaky I couldn’t hardly watch the last part of it. I was really motion sick because of all of the jerking around.

And I thought that… the Nazi thing and why Clive Owen cared should have been explained more

15

Well, damn, I liked the movie.
Spoilers ahead

[spoiler] The one really great thing I liked was the shot after the “Hostage” was executed, and Denzel was moved along the dolly track like a man in a daze.

I think people in this thread have missed the point of “inside”, and all I can say is the Rabi is your friend.

4 robbers, 4 people in the car (including the woman who broke the DD law - sorry, that was funny).

You need to tink about Clive Owen as the inside man and the Rabi he slaps with the gun in one of the first scenes. [/spoiler]

If you didn’t read the above, what was the song at the opening / closing of themovie?

16

Just saw it tonight with my wife and we both loved the movie. I did call that the people being beat up were in the gang and that the execution was faked but then I called the twist in Presumed Innocent near the beginning of the movie too, and that the girl was a guy in The Crying Game so maybe I have an eye for movie twists. :smiley:
I loved Denzel’s acting, as usual, and the dialogue was excellent. It’s already been said, but this was a damn funny movie in places and had me scratching my head till the end as to how Clive Owen was going to get away.

Very good movie, highly reccomended.

17

So, when the first hostage was beaten up, was that real? It was one of the bank employees, whose phone was found in the office. But he’s not one of the robbers (Clive, girl, rabbi, young scraggly guy), which means the beating was real, right?

18

Yes, he was seen later helping Denzel into the safety deposit box towards the end. He was still sporting bruises.

I loved it. All the camera work, and ending bits, but had one question about the heist:

What was the purpose of the hole? We saw them digging it, but it never got used, did it?

and

I assume the Inside Man refers to whoever gave Clive the info about Christopher Plummer and his box. I think we’re led to assume it was the rabbi, but they left it open.

19

The guy told you what it was for. He said “Now that’s a nice looking shithole.” It was Clive Owen’s toilet for a week.

20

Hmm… that’s a lot of work for just that.