Inside Man
Title: Inside Man Rated: R Screen format: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 Studio: Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment Year first theatrical release: March 2006 DVD released: August 8 2006 Director: Spike Lee Starring: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor Sound Formats: English, Spanish, French Dolby Digital 5.1 Length: 2 Hours, 9 Minutes Subtitles: English, Spanish, French |
Plot: 4/5
Spike Lee returns to Studio films and reinvents the heist genre with Inside Man. Denzel Washington enlists for his fourth starring role in a “Spike Lee Joint” as Detective Keith Frazier, a hostage negotiator in training, up for his first solo assignment without his mentor. Clive Owen is the hostage taking bank robber Dalton Russel. Russel masterminds the heist with a crew all named Steve, but it immediately becomes clear that the bank’s cash isn’t his main concern, perhaps there are more lucrative things to be found. Complicating the heist is bank owner Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) who protects his interest by hiring ‘fixer’ Madeline White (Jodie Foster) to exploit both Russel and Frazier to save his bank, and his reputation. While the heist movie has been mined to death, Lee’s reference to many of them and multiple homages to the genre keep this fresh, and while none of the cast makes great leaps out of their usual territory, all are superb in what they bring to the table and play off each other to great effect.
Sound Quality: 4.5/5
Inside Man features a very wide sound stage with holosonic effects used to great delight. The 5.1 is particularly noteworthy in the opening and closing themes, a Bollywood bubblegum pop number featuring rap scratches and other sound effects that swirl like boomerangs to all corners of the room. Bass effects are likewise pleasing, multiple deep rumbles of explosions combine with the strange mix of Indian pop and a modern cop rock. In fact, the theme is almost a clue, or red herring, it is so dramatic and over the top once the final music hits you have to say to yourself ‘that sounded GREAT, but I have no idea why they chose to use that kind of music’. Nonetheless the soundtrack is interesting and crisp from start to finish.
Visual Quality: 3.5/5
Visually Inside Man is pretty decent but one fatal flaw makes it not as noteworthy as it could be. Having seen this film in theaters I noted that many of the outside scenes almost had a ‘tearing’ effect especially in fast pans, and this effect is also present on the DVD transfer. While it had to be intentional, it is terribly distracting and gives the film a very cheap look, especially when compared to the interior scenes which have pretty decent sharpness. On the other hand, you have to give it props for reproducing the look that the actual film exhibited. I was initially impressed with the sharpness of the picture, but then on witnessing some of the bonus material which had been filmed with a HD cam it was evident that the film just had an overall softness to it. As for the coloring of this transfer, despite being a dark film and using the dull grey/black palette of city life, grain was well under control, and I never noted any edge enhancement or other artifacts besides the strange tearing that I had originally seen in the theater. The inevitable HD release probably won’t do much for the colors of this transfer, but more detail is almost certain to be uncovered.
Extra Features: 3.5/5
Inside Man has a short list of extras but all are worthwhile. Starting off we have a collection of 5 deleted scenes, one of which was the longest deleted scene I have ever seen put onto a DVD. In this scene, a 15 minute long collection of the interviews with the hostages, it becomes clear just how much choice the editors had and that the film benefited immensely from sparingly selecting from this material. The other four deleted scenes don’t hold up as well, but they are interesting and flesh out the characters a bit without really adding to the story. In a featurette titled Number 4, Denzel and Spike discuss their collaboration on their 4 films together. There is also an extensive Making Of featurette which was fairly interesting tho I wished they went into more detail into the choice of the main theme and 5.1 audio production, which as I said were great but didn’t really fit in with the rest of the film. Perhaps they did that on the full length commentary with Lee, although I have not sat down and listened to that track.
Overall: 3.5/5 (not an average)
Smart and witty dramas are in short supply these days, and Inside Man fills this gap nicely. The terrific acting, slick editing, over the top sound, and a script that keeps you guessing combine to form an engrossing package. Lee combines elements from many great robbery classics without ever feeling cliché, puts characters of differing races head to head where their racism is evident but never the driving force in their actions, and simply has the smarts to let a half dozen great actors feed off each other and entertain us in the process. It is a rare combination and worthy of a view.
