Looking Back, With Anger: Inside Man (2006)
Thursday, March 24, 2016 at 4:30PM Eric here to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Spike Lee's Inside Man, which remains his biggest box office hit.
When this tightly-plotted bank heist movie was released a decade ago, it promised a heavenly trio of huge stars: Denzel Washington, two time Oscar winner; Clive Owen, fresh off his first nomination for Closer; and Jodie Foster, coming off two solo box office successes (Panic Room and Flightplan). A decade later, only Washington (the least interesting actor of that trio) still works with annual frequency in major pictures. He lends effortless dynamism and charisma in his usual everyman role. Unfortunately its been lazy sailing for him ever since with one major exception (Flight).
Watching Inside Man again, it’s the loss of both Owen and Foster as regular cinema fixtures that burns, which is ironic since the film demands little from them. [More...]
Owen spends a fair amount of the movie with his airplane-landing-strip lips smothered behind a mask, but he creates a full-on movie character to provide a proper foil to Washington. Why is Clive Owen no longer headlining major motion pictures? He’s that rare creature: a talented, trained actor who you also believe would give you the best sex of your life and then make a killer joke afterwards. TV’s gain remains cinema’s loss.
I misremembered Foster's role, believing she had had much more to do, but she’s actually only in a handful of scenes. She aces them doing that thing that Jodie Foster does better than anybody: allowing you to actually see her character thinking. She’s always one jump beyond everyone else, both as a character and an actor. She went on to one more hit (The Brave One) and since then her appearances have become infrequent, and her acting more mannered. She’s one of the greats, though, and the morsels dropped in Inside Man are enough to remind you that some director should be coaxing her into a "comeback" with a killer role.
The most interesting thing about the film ten years ago was that Spike Lee was doing a studio picture at all, his first unabashedly commercial film. It was a for-hire job for a director usually accustomed to building and directing personal films. The result still feels electrifying: on the whole, still today, it works better as a total film than many of his other movies (or should I say “joints”…you know what, let’s not). The world will always owe Lee for giving us his one masterpiece, Do The Right Thing, and he’s made a few other fine fims (Malcolm X, Clockers), but surely Lee is no longer held as one of our major filmmakers? Revisiting Inside Man can make you yearn for him to to take on another studio assignment.
Two elements of the film that have not aged well, not that they were pleasant at the time, are the sexism and homophobia. Lee was clever enough to emphasize the casual racism perpetrated by the NYPD. Officers across the board make gross generalizations about people based on their ethnicity and color, and Lee pointedly highlights the endemic nature of the problem and even some of the whys behind uglier thoughts and behaviors. But his sympathies do not extend further. The women in the film are either castrating bitches (Foster, who is actually called the c-word) or large-breasted objects. When the men make jokes about their “great tits” it’s not there as social commentary like the racial elements, but a simple joke for the audience to laugh at. Similarly, there’s a gay prison sex joke followed by Washington’s remark that maybe Owen’s character is into “that sort of thing”.
But, ultimately, Inside Man remains an incredibly enjoyable experience. It offers big movie-movie pleasures that more accomplished smaller films can’t quite deliver. Lee’s craftsmanlike approach has real verve and yields suspense. The three stars are all fun to watch, however little might be asked of them. Russell Gewirtz's splendid script keeps you guessing at its twists all over again, years later, and it all feels like a dandy “New York City film," Hollywood Division. Perhaps it's no classic, and a minor entry in the filmography of its major talents, but catch it in another ten years and I'll bet it's still worth two hours of your life.
Inside Man also has Chiwetel Ejiofor in an early role. Great things were ahead for him
more on Spike Lee | more Denzel | more Jodie
Reader Comments (20)
Pleased I am not the only person in love ith Jodie's performance here,loved the total contrast to her other roles.
Mark -- and I just came to say the opposite. I never liked her in this one and count it as the beginning of the downward spiral when she just wasn't feeling it. or i wasn't feeling her.
eric -- i would disagree that Spike Lee is not one of our major directors. Sure as major directors go he's more uneven than many of them but i think Chi-Raq, Do the Right Thing, and 25th Hour and a handful of other goodies are a strong case that he deserves that honorary Oscar.
Spike wanted the c-word removed from the script. Foster insisted on it. And considering she says it in The Silence of the Lambs, played a prostitute / public gang rape victim (The Accused), and a child prostitute / witness to a brutal murder of her Johns (Taxi Driver) – misogynist language is the least of her concerns.
I love this film! The song at the start! And it makes great use of Clive Owen's voice which I am always here for.
And like Eric, it had me excited to see Lee take on another studio project, if only it hadn't been Oldboy.
I do agree with Nathaniel re Jodie Foster's performance though; in it I see the seeds of whatever she was doing in Elysium.
I think this movie is a total damp squib, really. I mean after all the big buildup that Jodie Foster's character is so slick a problem solver and commands an outrageously high fee for her services, she can't even get herself into the bank! Huh?
Nat I just those love stone cold bitch performances
Spike Lee, major filmmaker:
Chi-Raq
Red Hook Summer
Passing Strange
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
Inside Man
A Huey P. Newton Story
Bamboozled
Summer of Sam
He Got Game
4 Little Girls
Get on the Bus
Clockers
Crooklyn
Malcolm X
Do the Right Thing
She's Gotta Have It
Not a lot of masterpieces, some horribly flawed, but all worthy of discussion. (And these are just the ones I consider highlights.)
eric: I'm not exactly a staunch defender of Malcolm X. It's not terrible, but it's so thin compared to the gargantuan length (200 minutes) that a version that shaved an hour from that would work better.
Mo' Better Blues
Girl 6
School Daze
Deserve their due as well brother Outlaw.
I saw Inside Man for the first time just a few months ago. I really enjoyed it, but surely I wasn't the only one who thought the ending was terrible. Or was I?
/3rtful, not my favorites, but I see your point, which supports mine.
I agree with Nathaniel that Spike Lee is often very uneven, though his highs are substantial. I'd say that he needs strong material to begin with - like how he captured PASSING STRANGE on Broadway into something cinematic, or the screenplay for DO THE RIGHT THING. What's interesting about INSIDE MAN is that the script isn't very special, but Lee elevates it to one of his best.
Great write-up though, because this one deserves more credit.
I really fell for this movie when I saw it a decade ago, and count me in as a fan of Clive Owen.
I was watching it on the movie channel and was totally surprised to see that it was directed by Spike Lee. I admire a director more if they can switch up and do different genres, so I was most impressed by his work in this.
I remember an interview that Foster did for this. She said her portrayal was partially based on Uma Therman! She saw her character as a "spray tan" character.
One of those movies I will watch to the end no matter at what point I catch it.
Spike Lee introduced AR Rahman to American audiences before Jai Ho/Slumdog Millionaire. The Dil Se song that opens and closes the movie is an iconic Bollywood hit.
And I love that Jodie Foster has LEGS in this movie. I remember being so caught off guard that she was actually allowed to be sensual/sexual in a movie.
Spike Lee is easily one of top 5 favorite filmmakers of all time. So i have to disagree that he isn't a major filmmaker anymore. He will always be to me. For my two cents I really believe he has made 3 masterpieces. That would be Do The Right Thing, 25th Hour, and Malcolm X. I also believe many of his other films are fantastic. I've seen almost all of them. There is a lot of talk about the feud between Tarantino and Lee and many say Tarantino is hands down the better filmmaker. He might be more consistent, but Spike Lee's best work is better than Tarantino's best work IMHO. One of the things i love about Inside Man is how Spike Lee's direction is what elevates that movie beyond anything. He showed great range as a filmmaker with this one. I loved his use of A.R. Rahman's song as well. He really presented NY as a multicultural place which it really is. Spike Lee is a top tier filmmaker I just wish studio's would trust him more and let him do his thing.
The Brave One wasn't really a hit. It made $36m at the time, which was way below her other recent hits. In fact, it kind of signaled the end of the her leading woman era.
Still haven't seen Inside Man yet but I'm intrigued solely based on Foster's uncharacterstic casting.
"And I love that Jodie Foster has LEGS in this movie. I remember being so caught off guard that she was actually allowed to be sensual/sexual in a movie."
Ha, you and me both. I remember watching this at the theater and anxiously anticipating her scenes. I loved her in this.
"The Brave One wasn't really a hit. It made $36m at the time, which was way below her other recent hits. In fact, it kind of signaled the end of the her leading woman era."
Ironically, those $36m domestic dollars would be $42.3million in today's dollars, a respectable number for an adult drama especially one starring a middle age woman, but you're right, it didn't live up to the numbers of Panic Room and Flightplan.
**brief rant**
At the time of The Brave One opening, the studio chief proclaimed, very unfairly, that there would be no more women in the lead. This was a month after the terrible, Nicole Kidman flop, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I wondered if his statement tainted them both to other big studio projects. Too bad there was no twitter in those days to shame/drag his misogynist* ass and maybe Foster and Kidman would have different careers today.
*He didn't mind greenlighting The Town for then, box office poison, Ben Affleck, after all.
**rant over**
Love all the feedback, and I suppose it's nice to see there's still some fever over Spike Lee with some people. Perhaps my take on him as an awful person blinds me somewhat? Even more exciting is all the chat about Jodie. I think everybody misses her and what she can do when she's firing on all cylinders.
@Alex - your rant is fascinating and depressing, but the fact that it's not even all that surprising is even more depressing.