Inside Man
Once upon a time, a guy from Brooklyn named Spike Lee directed music videos and TV commercials with a flair and hyperkinetic energy never before seen in the medium. He also made movies, and his third feature film was an explosive tale about race relations in his home borough called Do The Right Thing (1989). Soon, Spike was making a series of popular Nike commercials with Michael Jordan and turning that cachet into a burgeoning film career. Eventually, his success led to other music video and commercial directors finding work in feature films, for better (Spike Jonze, David Fincher) or worse (Michael Bay, Brett Ratner, McG). Unfortunately, that success also gave Spike cart blanche to make whatever kind of films he wanted, and a dull, preachy writer-director emerged, beating the same topic to death over and over again. Sure, glimmers of the old Spike Lee would flash across the screen briefly in certain movies from time to time (Mo' Better Blues, Malcolm X), but mostly his work just got repetitive and boring and people stopped paying attention.
Then one day Ron Howard passed on a brilliant script about the perfect bank robbery to lend his three-star clout to The Da Vinci Code, and Howard's producing partner Brian Grazer hired Spike Lee to direct to the film instead. Called Inside Man, the script, written by first-timer Russell Gewirtz, was a page turner about a cop in a slump grappling with bank robbers who don't seem to be robbing the bank. Spike turned to his tried-and-true leading man Denzel Washington, rounded out the cast with a handful of other all-stars, and turned in a hell of a good thriller. The action inside the bank—keeping track of what the thieves are up to—is both challenging and entertaining, but Washington is the film's anchor around which the conflict spins. It's a nuanced performance for a movie like this, juggling Foster's shadowy "problem solver" and other political interests to whom a successful resolution means something very different than it does to him. Sure, Spike couldn't resist making his usual commentary in a few places, but he even managed to make that more thoughtful and fun than preachy. Inside Man marks a great return to form for a once fascinating filmmaker—hopefully he won't lose his way quite so much again.