Inside Man: Why Spike Lee’s Brilliant Bank Heist Is Also a Love Letter to New York

Graeme Tuckett is an employee for Stuff to Watch. Listen to the Stuff To Watch podcast by hitting the play button below, or find it in podcast apps like Apple or Spotify.

OPINION: It’s always great to be reminded that among the clutter that fills up Netflix’s “Most Popular This Week” front page, there are some damn good movies, lurking just a little farther in the shadows.

There’s no room here for a personal “Top Fifty Movies To Watch on Netflix,” but I was with a friend last week who had never seen Spike Lee’s Inside Man. And while I’ve seen Inside Man many, many times, it’s also a movie I like to introduce people to. And it was a joy to watch it unfold again.

Inside Man was a rare foray for Lee in the director-for-hire area. This was “directed by Spike Lee”, not “a Spike Lee Joint”. And yet Lee’s approach to Russell Gewirtz’s script is as quirky and unmistakable as any of his more personal projects.

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Gewirtz’s script calls for an unlikely scenario of a bank robbery. A gang of robbers, led by an enigmatic mastermind, take a Manhattan bank hostage and demand a jet from JFK Airport within 24 hours. The police know the gang needs time. But why – and what are they actually up to, within the bank?

When the answer comes, it won’t stand up to much scrutiny. But the journey there is a bull’s eye.

A good director can elevate an average script into something that looks like a classic. And that’s what Lee has achieved here.

Lee recruited Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe and Christopher Plummer to the project. The mild-mannered Owen seemed like an unlikely choice for a ruthless gang leader, but that’s exactly what makes his performance so good. Even at 185cm – and with those looks – Owen still excels at playing ordinary men, forced into heroic deeds.

Opposite Owen, as a compromised NYPD detective with a corruption investigation over his head, Denzel gives Washington one of the best roles of his career. Washington pours humor, nuance, blazing intelligence and comedic timing to die for, into every line and every moment of Inside Man.

Foster, Ejiofor, Dafoe and Plummer are all equally excellent. But Lee’s genius here wasn’t just pulling out the checkbook and securing a cast of stars.

What lifts Inside Man is what Lee does on a granular level. Every extra in this film, even the non-speaking roles, is a believable human, acting and moving in a way that gives Inside Man a veneer of authenticity beyond anything Gewirtz has put on the page.

Each of them is a classic New York “type”, from the Sikh student and delivery boy, to the diamond district insider to the warlike Brooklyn princess – and each of these characters gets to identify who they are and – often steal a scene. 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 – then forces them to interact. And it’s in those interactions, not the action and violence, that Inside Man derives its real suspense and intrigue. Inside Man is at its best in the spaces between the dialogues.

Lee makes everyone in the movie a star, at least for a while. That attention to real human detail that makes Inside Man shine. That, plus a brilliant soundtrack, some beautiful cinematography, a flurry of references to the immortal Dog day afternoona really great twist and all those other wonderful things that a good movie needs.

Inside Man is a love letter to Lee’s New York, set in the microcosm of a bank robbery on a summer’s day. You can poke holes in the ingenuity of the plot, but as a portrait of a city and its people, Inside Man is rock solid.

Inside Man is now streaming on Netflix and Prime Video.