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http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/insideman
Inside Man Universal Pictures Inside Man reviews
Metascore: 75 Metascore out of 100
MPAA RATING: R for language and some violent images
Starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Plummer, and Chiwetel Ejiofor
Acclaimed actors Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster come together to explore the lure of power, the ugliness of greed and the mystery of a perfect robbery in this combustible new crime drama. The powerhouse actors play tough New Yorkers who must outwit one another to protect competing interests in this skillfully penned and tightly helmed thriller. (Universal Studios)
GENRE(S): Crime | Drama | Mystery | Suspense/Thriller WRITTEN BY: Russell Gewirtz DIRECTED BY: Spike Lee RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: March 24, 2006 RUNNING TIME: 129 minutes, Color ORIGIN: USA
What The Critics Said
91 Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum The jazzish score, by Lee's music man, Terence Blanchard, is typically intrusive. But the mood is right, the twists are new. And with one casting inspiration, Inside Man furthers the rising stardom of Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity). Read Full Review
89 Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov As with all of Lee's films, there's much more going on beneath the surface than is immediately apparent. Read Full Review
88 USA Today Claudia Puig Inside Man may be a cat-and-mouse game, but it's far from predictable. What could have been a straightforward thriller is unusually clever, visually captivating and unfailingly entertaining. Read Full Review
83 The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias With juicy supporting roles for Chiwetel Ejiofor and Willem Dafoe as Washington's fellow officers, the film works best when the characters are just sitting back and shooting the breeze, which is what they're doing much of the time. Here, puzzling out a robbery is more fun than stopping it. Read Full Review
80 Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan Smartly plotted by newcomer Russell Gewirtz and smoothly directed by, of all people, Spike Lee, Inside Man is a deft and satisfying entertainment, an elegant, expertly acted puzzler that is just off-base and out-of-the-ordinary enough to keep us consistently involved. Read Full Review
80 Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern Boils with humor, surprise and dramatic energy. Read Full Review
80 LA Weekly Scott Foundas The heist at the heart of Inside Man is brilliant, and so is the movie. Read Full Review
80 Washington Post Stephen Hunter A deft, tense, pure thriller, the movie has great star turns and is brilliantly directed, but it began as an extremely well-crated screenplay by Russell Gewirtz. It's professionally entertaining. Read Full Review
80 The New York Times Manohla Dargis Filled with playful noise and nonsense, clever feints and digressions, Inside Man has a story to tell, but its most sustained pleasures come from its performances, especially the three leads. Read Full Review
80 Empire Sam Toy 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. Read Full Review
80 The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt Inside Man is the dull title of a crackerjack crime thriller. Read Full Review
80 New York Magazine David Edelstein I found myself savoring a thriller (as well as a Spike Lee “joint”) that wasn't, for a change, in my face. Read Full Review
75 Rolling Stone Peter Travers The suspense crackles, the acting sizzles and the script, by promising first-timer Russell Gewirtz, keeps tossing surprises like grenades. Read Full Review
75 Premiere Ethan Alter The script's flaws are most keenly felt in the Jodie Foster storyline, to the point where her character seems more like a bumbling screw-up than a supposedly sought-after facilitator. Whenever Lee turns the camera back to Denzel and Clive though, the movie works. Read Full Review
75 ReelViews James Berardinelli A workmanlike thriller that provides solid performances; a mixture of comedy, tension, and drama; and an engaging storyline. But there's nothing extraordinary about the movie. Read Full Review
75 Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman Go with the flow, and it remains a taut and well-engineered thriller. Poke at plot incongruities, as I was doing literally on the way to the parking lot, and it starts to unravel. Read Full Review
75 Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez Unexpectedly funny, leisurely paced and oblivious to the demands of its genre, Inside Man has a loose, playful vibe that's at odds with its grave life-and-death scenario. Read Full Review
75 Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea Lee transforms a generic cops-crooks-and-hostages scenario into a smart, sharp heist movie by the sheer force of his love for, and knowledge of, the city where he lives. Read Full Review
70 Village Voice J. Hoberman Inside Man certainly functions as a genre film, but the backbeat of inane banter and schoolyard trash-talking serves to promote an infectious sense of levity. Read Full Review
70 The New Yorker Anthony Lane The more it sags as a thriller, the more it jabs and jangles as a study of racial abrasion. Read Full Review
70 Variety Todd McCarthy A flashy cast, clever script and vibrant showcasing of New York City as the ultimate melting pot are strong plusses for Spike Lee's most mainstream studio venture. Read Full Review
67 Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer In Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon," which only looks better with the years, New York was as much a character in that film as its people. It was a movie that took its cue from the energy of the city. The Inside Man takes its cue mostly from other movies. Read Full Review
63 Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips The best scene in Inside Man is one of the simplest, a cat-and-mouser, wherein the hostage negotiator played by Washington pays a visit to Foster's wily manipulator. These two play it so cool, yet so clearly enjoy each other's onscreen company, it's a ticklish reminder of the simple pleasures of screen acting. Read Full Review
63 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert The whole plot smells fishy. It's not that the movie is hiding something, but that when it's revealed, it's been left sitting too long at room temperature. Inside Man goes to much difficulty to arrive at too little. Read Full Review
60 Dallas Observer Michael Atkinson Inside Man is irrelevant, another semi-high-tech mega-heist movie, the rhythms and tropes of which we are all as familiar with as we are with the wallpaper facing our toilets. Read Full Review
58 Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold A fairly routine heist drama and a never especially believable puzzle film. Read Full Review
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