By Justin Kroll
For The State News
Lee's films have been honest and controversial and have always appealed to a small group of people rather than mainstream, mass audiences.
"Inside Man," Lee's new thriller, not only throws out the politics that made Lee so famous, but becomes his most mainstream film to date.
The film opens with its villain, Dalton Russell (Clive Owen), giving a monologue in which he reveals his plans to perform the perfect bank robbery. This scene shows us how in controlled and confident Owen is in this role.
The following scene has Russell and his cohorts infiltrating the bank they plan to rob and taking everyone in the bank hostage. The police are eventually called and the audience is introduced to Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington). With this character, Washington gives us someone audiences will remember for a long time.
While this is going on, another story line is introduced when we learn the bank owner, Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), has something locked away in a safe deposit box in the bank. If it's found, it would be more damaging to him than if the robbery was a success.
So he hires Madeline White (Jodie Foster), a woman who has numerous connections, to make sure this secret stays a secret. Her connections eventually allow her to be a part of the case, but her only purpose in the film is to try and intimidate Frazier and be some kind of inside source to her client.
Frazier spends the rest of the film trying to figure out what Russell is trying to accomplish.
This might be Lee's most mainstream movie but he has attached a successful style to it that has helped past films — its originality is one aspect of this style that shines.
What makes this film so different from past heist films is that unlike movies of the past, such as "Dog Day Afternoon" (which this film references at one point), Lee doesn't make the audience root for one side or the other.
Owen and Washington also help out in that respect — as they confront each other in the bank's lobby during the film's finest scene, you can only smile as the actors exchange jabs and show how cool they can be together.
If this film were a four-course meal, the ending is the dessert you want to take your time with and savor. Instead of ending the film with a sudden twist, Lee takes his time with resolving the ending and by the time it's over, you feel as if you have been entertained by a true master of film.
