An intelligent thriller with a healthy few twists up its sleeve, The Inside Man marks strong, although hardly career-best, work from all concerned.

The plot is simple, and hardly fresh. On one side, you have a sophisticated team who walk into a bank, take everyone hostage and issue demands. On the other, you have a team of cops trying to apprehend those responsible and get the hostages out safely. In the middle, you have the owner of the bank, who's willing to bring in a bit of extra help to get the situation resolved. And yet what could have been a standard two-dimensional Hollywood blockbuster gets brains and substance thanks to those in front of and behind the camera.

The talent in front is led by a consummate Denzel Washington, as the cop leading the situation. Then there's the increasingly impressive Clive Owen and the always-excellent Jodie Foster, with sterling support from the likes of Christopher Plummer and Willem Dafoe.

Behind the camera, much has been made of the fact that this is the least Spike Lee-like film that Spike Lee has directed, yet that misses the point. The Inside Man sees a skilful, diligent and clever director utterly comfortable with what's going on, and wringing out plenty from the simple premise.

It's not a flawless film by any means: the last reel doesn't quite match up to what preceded it, and the script doesn't really get you near the skin of the characters (even if it does serve up some delicious, not entirely expected moments). Yet as heist movies go, this is one of the better examples of recent times, with plenty of reasons to recommend it. --Simon Brew

Why did I not hear about this film when it was out on cinema?
AT LAST......some original scripts. One of the cleverest films I have seen in a long time, and is mentally stimulating.
If you like "shoot em up's" avoid it. If you want a quality original film, snap Amazon's hand off at it's current price. UNDERVALUED.

What I like, is quality films lose their value quickly (suits ME) and rubbish "shoot em up's" hold their price better. If you want the latter, buy a Playstation.

This is a clever and exciting film. I didn't guess the twist, found the whole thing pretty believable and enjoyed it a great deal. Solidly recommended.

excellent caper film thats both exciting and gripping and boosted by excellent performances from a first class cast

Lumet and Pacino defined the bank heist movie in Dog Day Afternoon. Nothing had ever appeared like it before. Nothing has bettered it since. For literacy, surprises, tension, and a stunning climax, Dog Day continues to rank as one of the best American movies ever made.

Presumably, Lee had this in mind when directing this movie, because it's certainly literate, and, thankfully, imbued with no little intelligence. But artifice can only go so far, and here, in the editing of present events and future outcomes, that artifice begins to creak, betraying as it does a lack of confidence in a plot that if rendered in linear fashion would amount to, well, nothing much at all.

At the movie's core is a time-worn cinematic cliche about Nazis and ill-gotten gains, and because it is at the core, and therefore buried deep, the plot ultimately makes no sense at all.

Worse: to sustain it, Jodie Foster appears in one of the daftest roles she's ever taken on, a role whose complete unbelievability destroys the reality which Lee and a superb ensemble cast work so hard to sustain.

By no means a bad movie, it's nevertheless a slight effort, watchable but forgettable, and disappointing in that though the handling of the plot is slick and assured, the movie's basis is as trite and as melodramatic as it gets.

`Inside Man' is a good film. It's essentially a standard hostage situation thriller that wasn't over the top. From the moment it begins, there is clearly an urban vibe; the shots of Manhattan, not to mention the movie being billed as "A Spike Lee joint" give it a grittier tone. Do not let these minor touches fool you; as the movie progresses, it helps to not go in with preconceived notions of the typical Spike Lee movie. The camera shot changes every five seconds. Normally this would just annoy me, but the editor managed to do this without wasting a single one of those five second shots, and with great accompanying music it was actually one of my favorite opening sequences ever.

Clive Owen is great as, a "not your everyday bank robber," he's becoming one of my favorite actors. Denzel Washington played the lead role of the perceptive (if slightly jaded) police-detective. He gives us an incredibly performance in spite of the fact that he's playing a cop for what seams like the 11th time in his past 12 films. It's an interesting story with some decent twists and better than average dialogue. Jodie Foster is disappointingly underused as Madeline, so to with Christopher Plummer as Arthur. Willem Dafoe flounders in the background, it looks like he doesn't know why he's there. Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers one of the better performances, yet not his best from his other recent film. The dialogue in the movie is good. There's some humorous and great lines that come out of the character's mouths.

What I liked about Inside Man was the style it was made. It is choppy, but not so much, you get a sense of tension, and it seems very high paced. The plot is good, and very intriguing. There are some things you have to figure out throughout the film, which makes it more interesting. My only problem was that after the bank robbery was over, the film continued for another half hour, and it started to drag a bit.

Aside from minor problems it's a safe bet if you want an enjoyable film and one of Spike Lee's finest.