This ain't no ordinary heist

When I sat down to watch "Inside Man," I was more interested in seeing if director Spike Lee could pull off a bank heist movie about race, gender and other social issues than the story itself. Cause, you know, he's Spike Lee, and that's what he does. He makes movies about social issues. I tend to think he's hit or miss; often morally ambiguous, his movies and characters are fully human, faults and credits to their names.\nSee, characters like that tend to do poorly in blockbusters. Big-budget Hollywood doesn't really do ambiguity too often because it requires too much of the audience. I mean, if I wanted to think, I'd read a book. I just want to watch Ben Affleck blow up an asteroid heading for Earth and Will Smith drive a Hummer through shantytown buildings in Cuba. I don't ask for much.\nRefreshingly, Lee doesn't dumb anything down. "Inside Man" is smart, quick and just like we thought it would be, insightful. Full of little moments that comment on the cultural diaspora that is post-9-11 New York City. \nThe movie is the story of the "perfect bank robbery," which is itself a fantasy. The perfect bank robbery doesn't exist, and "Inside Man" won't convince you otherwise because it doesn't bother to explain troublesome back-story details. But that doesn't matter. Everything works out so that the bank robbery that does take place is pretty cool.\nSo the robbers (led by Clive "strongjaw" Owen) walk into a bank in lower Manhattan, pull guns and lock the doors. They issue demands and start tearing up a basement storage room. A garrison of police officers led by Detective Keith Frazier (my man Denzel Washington) musters outside and the robbers start issuing demands. Buses, jets, pilots or they start capping hostages. "Dog Day Afternoon" territory. Stuff that never works. Frazier notes this, and bam, you've got a tagline for your trailer: "this ain't no bank robbery." \nThrough all of this, Lee manages to put a fresh spin on a tired genre and makes the film his own, slipping little asides into an otherwise remarkable thriller -- the robbers play to the fears of the city by putting up a "terrorist" façade and race relations are a little tense among the police. \nSimultaneously, the characters and the plot are wonderful -- and the film shines because of it. Denzel plays Denzel, a character he's mastered, and turns in a wonderful performance. Jodie Foster as a high-society cleaner, hired by the bank president (Christopher Plummer) to protect his personal interests, is so convincing that you'll dislike her as a person by film's end. And Owen ... well, he doesn't even seem to do much acting at all -- though looking horribly stern and employing the "pistol whip" is its own brand of dramatization -- but when the characters lack, even a little (and Owen is still pretty good) the story makes up for it. It's entertaining. It'll keep you guessing. And it all wraps up nicely. Check it out.