Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

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  • Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

    Some stuff that bugged me...

    The first beat cop to come across the hiested bank says "perp with a gun" in three seperate shots (he's only got maybe five shots in the whole movie); its as though the director wasn't sure how he'd like to fit the line in, then decided to go with all the test shots.

    Clive says 'no cops, or people will die', next several shots are cops and police vehicles going back and forth in full view of the bank's front doors. I know, I know, so the audience would notice and feel tension. I just thought it was a little heavyhanded.

    Jodie made a surprisingly good ice queen, Denzel was comfortable in his character's skin, Clive was okay, but I kept hearing the writer through their lines. Your opinion?

    At beginning of movie Clive is addressing the camera directly, something to the effect of 'now listen very carefully because I only say things once and I never repeat myself'. Two things with this...
    (1) Addressing the audience directly is never used again throughout the whole movie so it stuck out like a sore thumb to me. If someone would like to venture that the viewer is actually seeing Clive address his team, why would he talk to them like that, especially with such stakes in the balance; it doesn't fly.
    (2) He says 'I never repeat myself' and then that same shot is shown again late in the movie for the thick-witted in the audience.

    There's a great song used during the opening sequence and end credits of the movie. And the song has NOTHING to do with the movie; this too sticks out like a sore thumb. It is a popular song called "Chaiya Chaiya" from the soundtrack of the Bollywood movie "Dil Se", all words are in Hindi or Urdu (I don't know which). The story in Dile Se has nothing in common with Inside Man. There does happen to be one minor sikh character in Inside Man. But basically Inside Man is set in New York City, briefly chases an Albanian red herring, and then veers into Nazi war crimes. How does Chaiya Chaiya relate to any of that?

    The stunning singer/dancer for Chaiya Chaiya in Dil Se, Malaika Arora, can be seen here: www.brns.com/bollywood/pictspages/malaika1.html

    She has nothing to do with anything else in that movie. Just a sexy thang in a good song stuck in the movie. She MIGHT be representing the beauty of girls from the Assam province (where that part of the story is taking place). Assam girls are known as the best looking women in India.

  • #2
    Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

    I agree about that opening song. It made me question what I was about to watch and how that kind of culture would be a part of the movie...and yet, it wasn't.

    Frankly, I found this entire movie to be overblown. It was pretty run of the mill (most heist movies are). From what I heard about the film beforehand, I had the feeling that the writer came up with some great twist. But this wasn't the case at all.

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    • #3
      Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

      Denzel's character could not have been any more uninteresting.

      This movie was a colossal waste of talent, from Washington to Foster to Plummer to Dafoe to Spike Lee. Remove them and you've got a pretty good DTV flick, that's about it.

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      • #4
        More about the song...

        I found this link to the Chaiyya Chaiyya 'video' extracted from the movie Dil Se. Hope you've got a faster connection and better sound system than me. Malaika and the male lead dance on a train as it moves through the lush Hindu-Kush mountains.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2gW3zwMMQ

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        • #5
          Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

          Spike's next movie is gonna be about the LA riots told in a way like "Crash".

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          • #6
            Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

            Originally posted by boski
            And in the final analysis, this is one of those movies that I don't think anyone who watched can really adequately explain to themselves or anybody else about what EXACTLY was going on. Who did what to whom and for what reasons?

            Left me with a big, "Huh??"
            moral relativism disguised as a heist movie. culpability and gradations of right vs wrong. i loved it.
            If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed. -- Stanley Kubrick

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            • #7
              Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

              We just saw this via Netflix recently. Shockingly mediocre. I can't imagine why the talent involved read this script and decided to be a part of it.

              And as bland as Denzel's character was... as run-of-the-mill as the hostage stuff was... as wasted as Clive Owen was covered by a mask... here's what infuriated me the most about the film.

              They spent the first 1 hr 45 or so inside the bank for the hostage drama... understandably so... then fine, they need a week to pass to show that Clive's been hiding in the bank... okay, mildly interesting hiding spot.

              But then another 10-15 minutes went by as we followed Denzel investigating the Nazi stuff! Are you serious? Is that really what the movie was about? In terms of pacing and momentum they completely dropped the ball on this.

              To add insult to injury, there's a listing in the sales section from last week that says Russel Gerwitz is working on the sequel. No thanks.

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              • #8
                Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                This was the best recent thriller I've seen.

                Yeah, the rest of them sucked that bad. (Did you see Flight plan? Oh my GAWD that stunk to high heaven.)

                Is it really that hard to write a decent thriller? I suspect it may be.

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                • #9
                  Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                  I work hard so that my stories make sense.

                  But do thriller audiences care if things make sense ?

                  ** SPOILERS **



                  ** SPOILERS **



                  ** SPOILERS **

                  Is there ever a sensible reason that the main character hides in the bank afterwards? It is shown that the others have a plan to get out, but then they go to a hell of a lot of work to leave him behind for NO benefit.

                  None. If he just wanted to hide the diamonds, they could have done it a thousand different ways.

                  Even if there was a benefit, what was he hoping? That the sniffer dogs looking for perps hiding in the building would somehow miss him? That no Bank employees would notice that everything on the shelf was moved to compensate for the metre of shelf space lost? That no-one would notice the smell of new paint?

                  It was a gimmick for the sake of a gimmick - it made no sense for the characters within the story.

                  Why should we bother trying to come up with motives for characters, when we can just have people doing random things?

                  Mac
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                  • #10
                    Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                    Originally posted by Mac H. View Post
                    I work hard so that my stories make sense.

                    But do thriller audiences care if things make sense ?

                    ** SPOILERS **



                    ** SPOILERS **



                    ** SPOILERS **

                    Is there ever a sensible reason that the main character hides in the bank afterwards? It is shown that the others have a plan to get out, but then they go to a hell of a lot of work to leave him behind for NO benefit.

                    None. If he just wanted to hide the diamonds, they could have done it a thousand different ways.

                    Even if there was a benefit, what was he hoping? That the sniffer dogs looking for perps hiding in the building would somehow miss him? That no Bank employees would notice that everything on the shelf was moved to compensate for the metre of shelf space lost? That no-one would notice the smell of new paint?

                    It was a gimmick for the sake of a gimmick - it made no sense for the characters within the story.

                    Why should we bother trying to come up with motives for characters, when we can just have people doing random things?

                    Mac
                    Good post. It's so frustrating to see movies like this made and then somehow gain critical and audience appeal. Yes, it was a gimmick that made no sense and yet Americans are too stupid to realize they've been duped...or they don't care.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                      Originally posted by Pencey View Post
                      Good post. It's so frustrating to see movies like this made and then somehow gain critical and audience appeal. Yes, it was a gimmick that made no sense and yet Americans are too stupid to realize they've been duped...or they don't care.
                      Grow up a little. Just because you hated the movie doesn't mean you should denigrate people for liking it. Bill Martell made a good point when people around here were bashing "Fantastic Four": instead of piling on about how awful it was, try to figure out *why* audiences connected with it. Personally, I thought the "Inside Man" was full of implausibilities, but I enjoyed the interplay among the characters.
                      "I was dreamin' when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray." - Prince

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                      • #12
                        Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                        I saw this in the theatre, the night in opened, with four friends. We were all excited because of the star-studded line up and thought it couldn't go wrong. Needless to say I was quite disappointed at the end. The ending was way too drawn out trying to tie up "loose ends" that no one really cared about at that point. I liked some of the performances, the story got a bit muddled though. All in all, it could've been a lot better but I didn't find it as bad as some.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                          Originally posted by Furious Anjel View Post
                          Grow up a little. Just because you hated the movie doesn't mean you should denigrate people for liking it. Bill Martell made a good point when people around here were bashing "Fantastic Four": instead of piling on about how awful it was, try to figure out *why* audiences connected with it. Personally, I thought the "Inside Man" was full of implausibilities, but I enjoyed the interplay among the characters.
                          Thanks for the unasked for advice. Maybe you should pull your head out of your a$$ and see that people went to this movie mostly because of the star-studded cast led by Denzel.

                          As a society, we have become tolerant of bad writing...and this includes critics. After awhile, everyone stops caring. Maybe this doesn't bother you Pollyanna, but it bothers me plenty.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                            it worries me that hwd thinks this was good writing.

                            official tagline: "It looked like the perfect bank robbery"...

                            scatplay:

                            page 188

                            "And we finally PULL OUT to reveal --

                            a perfectly plumbed in SH!T PIPE."



                            script is either innately fvck-stupid, or thinks audiences will buy absolutely anything, and knows that if you market a film about a "perfect", "unique", "you've never seen this before" bank robbery forcefully enough (and get Jodie Foster et al to parrot this blurb) you can by letting the audience's expectations do all the hard work

                            Tipjar, I thought the same.

                            The scene with the wire and the recording got on my nerves, I am sure 99% of the audience realised it was a tape, and Washington's character was just being a numbnuts... did we really have to go through the motions for 10 minutes *and* have a reveal on the ipod? We get it already.

                            speaking of which, where's the reveal of Clive on the john???

                            It was the perfect box office heist. Beggers belief this script was so well received. But I caught Out of Time again last month and still think it's great.
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                            • #15
                              Re: Inside Man (Denzel, Jodie, Clive)

                              Originally posted by Mac H. View Post
                              I work hard so that my stories make sense.

                              But do thriller audiences care if things make sense ?
                              I write thrillers, and I spend a better part of the day -- every day -- making sure everything in my current script is logical and nothing comes out of left field just to patch up a hole in the plot.

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