Inside Man

Inside Man (2006) is an unusual film for Spike Lee. It’s short on social issues and long on action and suspense. It has some of the trademark features of a Spike Lee film: inventive photography, innovative use of music, a multicultural cast of characters. But it is also about a bank robbery: two hostage negotiators, the lead played by Denzel Washington, fail to talk robbers who have taken a large group of bank employees and customers out of robbing the bank. At the critical moment, the robbers escape, despite the hoard of policemen surrounding the bank. And it’s not clear what they’ve stolen. The rest of the film unravels the mystery of who the robbers were and why they robbed the bank.

This is not a social problem film, not a film that seeks to examine the racial and social issues that divide and energize the nation, but a film that after a long and somewhat engrossing exposition boils down to a surprisingly hackneyed conclusion.

Even so, the film is interesting if not of great substance. In the film Lee pays homage, or at least winks, at several issues. One is the World Trade Center attacks. In the background of one scene is a banner that reads “Never Forget,” or something to that effect. This might seem to be the only such element in the film, but in fact there is more. Policemen, detectives, hostage negotiators, riot squads, and crowds of onlookers, surround the bank once the word gets out that robbers have taken hostages. All the power of New York law enforcement is brought to bear. High technology and expertise all collaborate to prevent the robbers’ escape. Yet they do escape. They outwit the policemen and disappear. The efforts of law enforcement are completely foiled.

In some way Lee seems to be commenting on the ineffectiveness of law enforcement in confronting and defeating plots. Policemen expect criminal minds to think in a particular way. The criminals in this film think differently, and their plot succeeds as a a result. In terms ethics and expertise, the police are found lacking. Denzel Washington’s superior officer tells him to close the case because “it can’t be solved.”

Another issue obliquely commented on is racial profiling. The robbers force their hostages to put on the same clothing the robbers are wearing. The police can’t tell the robbers from their victims. This helps the robbers escape. When everyone leaves the bank at once, everyone is dressed alike, and the policemen treat everyone as a criminal, forcing them to the ground, handcuffing them, manhandling them. They have no alternative, of course, because some of the robbers are clearly among them, but the point is made nonetheless. The hostages are treated like robbers because they are dressed like robbers. This ruse defeats the attempts of police to detect the real culprits. A plot twist at the end of the film further enriches the complexity of this theme.

The police base their plans for dealing with the robbers on assumptions about how robbers behave. They also treat the people streaming out of the bank on the basis of assumptions about the way they are dressed. The robbers depend on these assumptions. Because they assume that law enforcement will assume, they are able to escape.

Inside Man is well made and inventively filmed. But the script and the basic plot scenario hamstring Lee, and the film seems too tightly wound, too programmed, as a result. But it works nonetheless. Christopher Lee is effective in a supporting role. Jodie Foster seems out of character as a independent agent who works with people of a shadowy nature—Osama Bin Laden’s nephew, an aging Nazi, corrupt politicians, to help them get their way.