An Inside Job

By Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters. Posted March 28, 2006.

New York is everywhere in Spike Lee's sharp new genre-bending movie. Not just in the sweeping-through-the-streets or creeping-along-the-sidewalk shots, but also inside the Manhattan bank where the film is set, inside the minds of the cops trying to solve the heist, and inside the exit interviews they conduct in tight, white-lit shots. New York is outside and inside "Inside Man", but mostly, it's in the incisive focus, impetus, and consequences of the film.

Ostensibly a heist movie of the "Die Hard" sort, with colorfully ingenious villains who reveal surprising motives, Lee's film (scripted by first-timer Russell Gewirtz) works within and without conventions, juggling a number of balls both familiar and eccentric. The detectives on the case -- hostage negotiator Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and his partner Mitch (Chiwetel Ejoifor) -- appear first at the station, oblivious to the robbery that you already know is in serious progress. You've seen the foursome in painters' uniforms and masks enter the bank -- located, the camera notes from an ominous low angle, at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway -- disable the surveillance cameras, and take all the customers, workers, and security guards hostage.

When the scene cuts to Keith, he's on the phone with his stunningly beautiful cop girlfriend, promising her an evening with "Big Willy and the twins." Not the role Washington usually plays, but Keith is clearly a man of his environment, seated across two desks from Mitch and crabbing about an Internal Affairs investigation into a missing $140,000.

And then comes the call. Mitch and Keith light up when they realize they've got a chance to prove themselves, to get out from under the clamor at HQ. The captain's other, favored team is somewhere else, and so, as Mitch exclaims, they're off to "the show."

The crime scene is already taped off, a mini-city populated by shooters and uniforms, hulking vans and vocal gawkers. But even as the outside scene recalls "Dog Day Afternoon" (which Keith cites by name); inside, the machinery is grinding along: the robbers dress the hostages like themselves, move them from room to room so they can't get to know one another, and dig up a wall in the storage room. While you and the cops wonder what they're up to, Keith has to make nice with turf-protecting Emergency Services Unit Captain Darius (Willem Dafoe), still mad at him for some case they worked years ago, but also anxious to get this one off quickly and successfully.

Keith's got bridges half-burned wherever he turns, which makes him intriguing, if cryptic. Among the bridge's he's going to be burning during this adventure is a relationship with bank board chairman Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), who shows up partway through the calamity to offer "support," whatever he can do. The robbers have asked for a jet, which the cops recognize as a ploy (no one ever gets a jet, not since Munich, and everyone's seen the movies that make this point), but which Arthur agrees to right away. The cops, huddled in the corner of their commander-trailer, exchange smirky looks and send him off, understanding he's powerful and rich beyond anyone's dreams, but has no clue how to how to talk with people or grocery shop.

Cynthia Fuchs is Popmatters' film and TV editor.

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