Inside Man

In August 2005, inside a small, dimly-lit cell, Dalton Russell proclaims he has committed the perfect bank robbery. Some time prior, in New York City, masked robbers, dressed in painter coveralls and using variants of the name "Steve" as aliases, seize control of a Manhattan bank, taking patrons and employees hostage. They divide the hostages into groups and hold them in different rooms, forcing them to don masks and coveralls identical to their own, rotating them among various rooms and occasionally inserting themselves covertly into the groups. They also take turns demolishing and building a replacement fake wall in one of the bank's storage rooms. Police surround the bank, and Detectives Keith Frazier and Bill Mitchell take charge of negotiations. Russell, the head robber, demands food be provided. The police send pizzas whose boxes have hidden listening devices. The bugs pick up someone speaking Albanian (initially misunderstood to be Russian), which is later identified as propaganda recordings of the late Albanian leader Enver Hoxha, implying that the robbers anticipated the attempted surveillance. When Arthur Case, the bank's founder and chairman, learns about the holdup, he hires fixer Madeleine White to try to protect the contents of a safe deposit box within the bank. Russell breaks into a safe deposit box and finds, among other things, documents from Nazi Germany. White, using her influence with the Mayor of New York, is introduced to Frazier and persuades him to let her talk to Russell, who agrees to allow her inside the bank so they can talk privately. Russell implies that Case started his bank with money he received for collaborating with the Nazis, resulting in many Jews dying during World War II. Frazier demands to inspect the hostages before allowing the robbers to leave and Russell shows him around the bank. As he is being shown out, Frazier attacks Russell, but is restrained by another robber. Afterwards, Frazier explains he deliberately provoked him, concluding that Russell is not a killer. However, Frazier's conclusion is almost immediately tested when a hostage execution is staged. The execution prompts an Emergency Services Unit team into action. They plan to storm the bank, using rubber bullets to knock out those inside. Frazier discovers that the robbers have planted a listening device on the police; aware of the police plans, the robbers detonate smoke grenades and exit the bank hidden among the hostages. The police detain and question everyone but cannot distinguish the identically dressed hostages from the robbers. A search of the bank reveals the robbers' weapons were plastic replicas. They find props showing that the hostage execution was faked, and no money or valuables appear to have been stolen. Unable to identify the suspects and unable to show a robbery has even been committed, Frazier's superior orders him to drop the case. Frazier, however, searches bank records and finds that safe deposit box No. 392 has never appeared on any records since the bank's founding in 1948. He obtains a search warrant to open it. White then confronts Frazier to persuade him to drop his investigation and during their conversation she hints at Case's Nazi dealings. Frazier refuses to stop his investigation and plays a recording he had surreptitiously made of an incriminating conversation that took place earlier between White and Frazier and the mayor. White confronts Case, who admits the box contained loose diamonds and a Cartier diamond ring he took from a Jewish friend whom he betrayed to the Nazis. Russell's opening monologue is revealed to have happened while he hid behind a fake wall the robbers had constructed inside the bank's supply room. He emerges a week after the robbery with the contents of Case's safe deposit box, including incriminating documents and several bags of diamonds. On his way out, he bumps into Frazier, who does not recognize him. Russell exits the bank and enters a waiting car filled with his conspirators, some of whom the police had questioned. When Frazier opens the safe deposit box, he finds the ring and a note from Russell that says, "follow the ring". He confronts White, urging her to contact the Office of War Crimes Issues at the State Department about Case's war crimes. At home, Frazier finds a loose diamond and realizes that Russell slipped it into his pocket during their collision while exiting the bank. ==Cast==

• Denzel Washington as Detective Keith Frazier, New York City police detective with a scandal attached to his name who is desperate to make Detective First Grade. He is assigned to negotiate with the ringleader of a Manhattan bank heist. The film marks Washington's fourth collaboration with director Spike Lee. Lee first approached Washington and gave him the opportunity to play either Frazier or Dalton Russell. Washington turned down the latter, citing concerns over the character's disguise. He cited his Broadway performance as Brutus in Julius Caesar as inspiration, stating, "I think it actually helped me prepare for Frazier—Russell [Gewirtz]'s script is heavy with great dialogue. My character does a lot of talking! I kind of thought of Frazier as Brutus goes to Brooklyn. For me, there is a certain rhythm and cadence of New Yorkers, and this gave me the opportunity to play a New York kind of guy who's going through a lot while dealing with this smart and challenging adversary." • Clive Owen as Dalton Russell, the ringleader of the elaborate bank heist. Russell first appears at the beginning of the film, breaking the fourth wall and giving an account of how he will commit the perfect bank robbery. Owen nearly turned down the role; like Washington, he expressed concerns over the character's disguise of a hood, mask and sunglasses. He said, "To play whole scenes where you're masked, you've got on sunglasses and you're wearing a hood is very weird, because a lot of acting is often through intent, and intent is shown through the eyes. To suddenly have that taken away and have this big barrier there was very disarming." • Jodie Foster as Madeleine White, Manhattan power broker who is hired to act as a "fixer" in response to the bank heist. Foster saw the film as an opportunity to collaborate with Lee, explaining, "Spike is somebody who always fascinated me, and I've loved his movies. I've always wanted to be involved in something he's making." Lionel Pina, who also appeared in Dog Day Afternoon as a pizza delivery man, reprises his role in Inside Man as one of the policemen delivering pizzas to the bank's front doors. Other roles include Cassandra Freeman as Officer Sylvia, Frazier's girlfriend; Peter Gerety as Captain Coughlin, Frazier and Mitchell's superior; Victor Colicchio as Sergeant Collins, the first officer to respond to the bank robbery; Jason Manuel Olazabal as ESU Officer Hernandez; Al Palagonia as Kevin, a construction worker who recognizes the language as Albanian, as he was formerly married to an Albanian-born woman; Florina Petcu as Ilina Miritia, the Albanian woman in question who explains that they are hearing recordings of Enver Hoxha; Peter Kybart as the Mayor of New York City; Anthony Mangano as an ESU officer; and Daryl Mitchell and Ashlie Atkinson as Mobile Command Officers. ==Production==

Development The script for Inside Man was written by Russell Gewirtz, a former lawyer who conceived the idea while vacationing in several countries. His friend Daniel M. Rosenberg assisted in developing the script, then known as The Inside Man. After it was completed in 2002, the script was passed around several times. Rosenberg shopped it to a number of Los Angeles agencies, After being cast, Denzel Washington and Chiwetel Ejiofor worked together on studying their lines and understanding their characters. Lee helped prepare his actors by screening a number of heist films including Dog Day Afternoon. Universal Pictures provided a budget of $45 million. By filming in New York, the production was eligible for the city's "Made in NY" incentives program. Interior sets were created at the New York-based Steiner Studios, and Inside Man was the second film (after 2005's The Producers) to be shot inside the 15-acre facility. Location scouting revealed a former Wall Street bank at 20 Exchange Place had been closed down and repurposed as a cigar bar. The building stood in for the fictional Manhattan Trust Bank branch, where the bank heist occurs. "Without a bank, we didn't have a movie," Lee explained. "But everything ended up going very smoothly. We shot in the heart of Wall Street in a bank that had been closed down. It was like having a back lot in the middle of Wall Street." Cinematography The film was director of photography Matthew Libatique's second collaboration with Lee. Because the filmmakers intended to finish with a digital intermediate (the post-production digital manipulation of color and lighting), Libatique chose to shoot the film in the Super 35 format for a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. He mainly used Kodak Vision2 500T 5218 and Vision2 Expression 500T 5229 film stocks. The film was shot with Arricam and Arriflex cameras and Cooke S4 lenses. Using the Grand Theft Auto franchise as a reference, Lee wanted the scene to serve as a social commentary on gangsta rap, violent crime among African Americans Music Jazz musician and trumpeter Terence Blanchard composed the film score, marking his eleventh collaboration with Lee. The soundtrack features the song "Chaiyya Chaiyya", composed by A. R. Rahman, which originally appeared in the 1998 Hindi film Dil Se... The song is featured during the opening credits of the film. A remix of the song, titled "Chaiyya, Chaiyya Bollywood Joint" plays during the end credits, and features Panjabi MC's added rap lyrics about people of different backgrounds coming together in order to survive. ==Release==

Inside Man held its premiere in New York at the Ziegfeld Theatre on March 20, 2006, coinciding with Lee's 49th birthday. On March 24, 2006, Universal Pictures released the film in 2,818 theatres in North America. The film was given the widest release of any Spike Lee film, edging out Summer of Sam (1999) by 1,282 theatres. Inside Man was also released throughout 62 foreign markets. The film was released on DVD on August 8, 2006, on HD DVD on October 23, 2007 and on Blu-ray on May 26, 2009. ==Reception==

Box office On its opening day in North America, the film grossed $9,440,295 with an average of $3,350 per theatre. By the end of its opening weekend, it had grossed $28,954,945, securing the number one position at the box office. Inside Man had dropped 46.7% in its second weekend, earning $15,437,760; it had dropped to second place behind Ice Age: The Meltdown. The film dropped an additional 40.9% in its third week, bringing in $9,131,410, though it remained in the Top 10 rankings for the weekend, placing fourth overall. The film remained in the top ten for the fourth weekend in a row, grossing about $6,427,815 and finishing sixth for the week. Inside Man was released overseas on March 23, 2006. On its opening weekend, it grossed about $9,600,000 in ten territories. The film grossed $95,862,759 in the overseas box office, with a worldwide total of $184,376,254. while it ranked the 21st highest-grossing film released worldwide. Critical response for eschewing his usual style and delivering a straightforward thriller. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 210 reviews and an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Spike Lee's energetic and clever bank-heist thriller is a smart genre film that is not only rewarding on its own terms, but manages to subvert its pulpy trappings with wit and skill – and Denzel Washington is terrific as a brilliant hostage negotiator." Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based on 39 critics, considered to be "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, with exit polls showing that 54% of the audience was male, while 68% was at least 30 years old or older. The American Film Institute named Inside Man as one of the top ten films of 2006. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote "Inside Man works because it takes a familiar setup—in this case, a Wall Street bank heist that mutates into a hostage crisis—and twists it ever so slightly. A particularly solid screenplay helps here, as do stars who can actually act ... along with an excellent supporting cast and the best lineup of pusses and mugs outside The Sopranos." The Wall Street Journal wrote "Our willingness to go along with the film's flaws is a tribute to its strengths, and to a cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor and Willem Dafoe, plus scores of character actors in small but striking roles." Empire gave the film four stars out of five, concluding, "It's certainly a Spike Lee film, but no Spike Lee Joint. Still, he's delivered a pacy, vigorous and frequently masterful take on a well-worn genre. Thanks to some slick lens work and a cast on cracking form, Lee proves (perhaps above all to himself?) that playing it straight is not always a bad thing." Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe wrote, "The basic story is elemental, but because Lee and Gewirtz invest it with grit, comedy, and a ton of New York ethnic personality, it's fresh anyway." David Ansen of Newsweek commented, "As unexpected as some of its plot twists is the fact that this unapologetic genre movie was directed by Spike Lee, who has never sold himself as Mr. Entertainment. But here it is, a Spike Lee joint that's downright fun." Giving the film a B+ rating, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly described the film as "a hybrid of studio action pic and Spike Lee joint. Or else it's a cross between a 2006 Spike Lee joint and a 1970s-style movie indictment of urban unease." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times criticized the narrative, writing, "Here is a thriller that's curiously reluctant to get to the payoff, and when it does, we see why: we can't accept the motive and method of the bank robbery, we can't believe in one character and can't understand another." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it a "supremely annoying and nonsensical film". Rex Reed of The New York Observer wrote, "Inside Man has two things going for it: better actors than usual and a slicker look. Otherwise, it's no different from nine out of 10 other preposterous, contrived, confusingly written, unevenly directed, pointless and forgettable junk films we've been getting these days." ==Sequel==

In November 2006, it was announced that a sequel to Inside Man was in development, with Russell Gewirtz reprising screenwriting duties. Under the working title Inside Man 2, the film would have Brian Grazer again serve as producer. Spike Lee was in negotiations to reprise his directing duties while serving as an executive producer alongside returning member Daniel M. Rosenberg. In 2008, Terry George was in negotiations to write the screenplay for the sequel; he later replaced Gewirtz, whose screenplay was abandoned. Lee confirmed this, expressing that he could not secure funding for the project. "Inside Man was my most successful film, but we can't get the sequel made," he said. "And one thing Hollywood does well is sequels. The film's not getting made. We tried many times. It's not going to happen." In 2019, a sequel titled Inside Man: Most Wanted was released direct-to-video and streaming on Netflix. ==References==