Spike Lee’s love letter to New York
It’s always great to be reminded that beneath the dross that clutters up the ‘‘most popular this week’’ front page of Netflix, there are some damn fine films, lurking just a bit further down in the shadows.
There’s no room here for a personal ‘‘Top 50 Movies To Watch on Netflix’’, but I was with a friend last week who had never seen Spike Lee’s Inside Man. And although I’ve watched Inside Man many, many times, it is also a film I love introducing people to. And it was a treat to watch it unfold again.
Inside Man was a rare foray for Lee into directorfor-hire territory. This was ‘‘directed by Spike Lee’’, not ‘‘a Spike Lee Joint’’. And yet, Lee’s approach to Russell Gewirtz’s script is as idiosyncratic and unmistakable as any of his more personal projects.
Gewirtz’s script calls for an unlikely bank heist scenario. A gang of robbers, led by an enigmatic mastermind, take hostages at a Manhattan bank and demand a jet from JFK airport in 24 hours. The cops know that the gang are stalling for time. But why – and what are they really up to, inside the bank?
When the answer arrives, it doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. But the journey there is a blast.
A great director can elevate an average script into something that looks like a classic. And that is what Lee achieved here.
Lee pulled Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe and Christopher Plummer into the project. The softlyspoken Owen seemed like an unlikely choice for a ruthless gang leader, but that is exactly what makes his performance work so well. Even at 185cm – and with those looks – Owen still excels at playing ordinary men, forced into heroics.
Opposite Owen, as a compromised NYPD Detective with a corruption investigation hanging over him, Denzel Washington hands in one of the best roles of his career. Washington pours wit, nuance, blazing intelligence and comedic-timing to die for, into every line and moment of Inside Man.
Foster, Ejiofor, Dafoe and Plummer are all similarly excellent. But Lee’s genius here wasn’t just getting out the cheque book and securing a cast of stars. What lifts Inside Man is what Lee does at a granular level.
Every extra in this film, even the non-speaking roles, is a believable human being, acting and moving in ways that give Inside Man a veneer of authenticity beyond anything Gewirtz put on the page.
Every one of them is a classic New York ‘‘type’’, from the Sikh student and delivery guy, to the diamond district insider to the bellicose Brooklyn princess – and each of these characters get to establish who they are and – often, steal a scene clean away from the amused and always generous Washington, Owen and co.
Lee takes well-drawn characters from every level of New York’s complex social strata – and then forces them to interact. And it’s in those interactions, not the action and the violence, that Inside Man derives its real tension and intrigue. It’s in the spaces between the dialogue that Inside Man is at its best.
Lee makes a star of everyone in the film, at least for a moment. That attention to genuine human detail that makes Inside Man shine. That, plus a brilliant soundtrack, some gorgeous cinematography, a flurry of references to the immortal Dog Day Afternoon, a truly great twist and all that other wonderful stuff that any good film needs.
Inside Man is a love letter to Lee’s New York, being played out in the microcosm of a bank heist on a summer’s day. You can poke holes in the contrivances of the plot, but as a portrait of a city and its people, Inside Man is solid as a rock.
Inside Man is now available to stream on Netflix and Prime Video.