Inside Man
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Inside Man |
| Original title | Inside Man |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2006 |
| length | 129 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Spike Lee |
| script |
Adam Erbacher , Russell Gewirtz |
| production |
Brian Grazer , Daniel M. Rosenberg |
| music | Terence Blanchard |
| camera | Matthew Libatique |
| cut |
Barry Alexander Brown Adam Erbacher |
| occupation | |
| |
Inside Man is an American thriller from 2006 . The heist movie stars Denzel Washington , Clive Owen , Christopher Plummer and Jodie Foster , directed by Spike Lee .
action
Bank robber Dalton Russell wants to commit the “perfect bank robbery”. He and his four accomplices take hostages in a bank branch in New York City . The hostages are disguised as robbers so that the police cannot distinguish them from the perpetrators. The police officer Keith Frazier, who is under pressure because of an unjustified suspicion of corruption, leads the negotiations.
The bank boss Arthur Case has the politically influential lawyer Madeline White interrupt a client conversation and asks her to take part in the negotiations. He fears that the robbers could steal a document from a safe deposit box that - as will be known later - shows that he made a lot of money doing business with the Nazis in the 1940s and was therefore able to set up the bank after the war . There are also valuable, "Aryanized" diamonds and a long-lost ring that the Gestapo took from a well-known Parisian Jew during World War II . Case did not want to help the befriended family and watched while they were being taken to the concentration camp . He received the ring as thanks for his cooperation. Indeed, Madeline succeeds in being admitted to the bank robbers and proposes them a deal.
During the hostage-taking, the police acted on the demands for time, what Dalton Russell had planned with his accomplices to put in an inconspicuous partition behind a storage shelf in the basement of the bank, behind which he can hide for several days later. He himself leaked a hidden microphone to the police so that he always knows what they will do next. Russell's accomplices skilfully mingle with the hostages and are therefore undetected among them when the police want to storm the building and, on Russell's command, storm all the hostages out of the front door of the bank.
All hostages and Russell's accomplices are arrested by the police. Since apparently nothing was stolen from the bank, no one would suffer permanent damage and none of those arrested can be proven to have participated in the robbery, the investigation should be closed. It also turns out that toy guns were used throughout the hostage situation and that the murder of a hostage was only faked.
Policeman Frazier finds out that a safe deposit box does not appear on any of the bank's lists. He determines that it belongs to the bank manager and requests judicial authorization to open the safe. Meanwhile, Russell spends a week in his hiding place before leaving the bank with the bank director's diamonds and the historical document through the main entrance during the day, thus successfully completing his project. At the same time, Frazier enters the bank, where Russell bumps into the policeman without being recognized by him.
Frazier opens the locker and finds the ring and next to it a note from Russell with the note "Follow the ring". Meanwhile, Madeline reports to the bank manager that she had been successful: the bank robber had promised to destroy the files; if not, Case should just pay for the file, which is entirely justified.
Through Russell's tip, Frazier discovers the bank manager's secret of having done business with the Nazis. Frazier meets Madeline with the Mayor of New York and gets her to report the bank manager to a war crimes tribunal.
Back home, Frazier finds a diamond in his jacket pocket that Russell slipped him unnoticed while he was bumping into him, as Frazier revealed during negotiations with Russell that he wanted to propose to his girlfriend but did not yet have a diamond ring. Meanwhile, Russell escapes unrecognized.
production
The film was in the Financial District in the vicinity of Wall Street turned. The robbed bank is in the 20 Exchange Place high-rise.
interpretation
The journalist Uh-Young Kim says in Spiegel online that the thriller plot conceals “caustic criticism of America's race and war politics”. For example, the story of the bank boss shows clear parallels to the business relationships between George W. Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush and the Nazi regime .
Reviews
Foreign language reviews
James Berardinelli wrote on ReelViews that the film was made "solidly" but would prove that a large number of "A-Stars" does not guarantee a "great movie". He wrote that while Jodie Foster didn't play badly, the character she was playing didn't have much impact on the plot. Overall, he described the film as "entertaining" but unable to make a lasting impression.
Roger Ebert complained in the Chicago Sun-Times of March 24, 2006 that the character played by Jodie Foster had a lot of influence, but it was not explained where the influence came from. He described White's character as "unfinished". Overall, he praised the portrayal of Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster, but criticized the fact that Christopher Plummer did not look like a 90-year-old man who was significant enough to commit major crimes during World War II . Ebert also acknowledged weaknesses in the script and said that there was a lot of fishy things about the whole story (“The whole plot smells fishy”).
Claudia Puig described the film in the online edition of USA Today (on March 23, 2006, supplemented on March 26) as "unorthodox" and the script as "extremely well-written". She described the portrayal of Clive Owen as "brilliant" and compared the cleverness of the character played by Jodie Foster to that of Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs , coupled with a dose of " Machiavellian " charm. She criticized a few weaknesses in the plot ("plot holes"), which, however, were not particularly serious.
German-language reviews
Cinema praised the “clever word duels that Clive Owen and Denzel Washington deliver”, but criticized the fact that the film “gets bogged down in secondary war scenes”, which makes it “seem a little lengthy at times”.
The lexicon of international films judged: "The cleverly constructed, virtuoso thriller with the narrative times entertains excellently in the guise of a classic genre film with sovereign direction and a superbly performing star ensemble."
Filmstarts.de wrote that the film was “conventional”, but with “superstars” in the cast. The film wanted to contain political statements, which, however, weakened the effect of the “gripping” film.
Critic.de said: “Inside Man turns out to be a popcorn and good mood cinema made with superbly elaborate film language, in the puzzle style of the usual suspects , in which cop and Robber are finally both allowed to shine at the end. [...] You give yourself presents. A happy film. "
The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.
Web links
- Inside Man in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Inside Man at Metacritic (English)
- Inside Man atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating for Inside Man . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Uh-Young Kim: The finger on the 9/11 wound . In: Spiegel online , March 22, 2006, accessed November 18, 2012.
- ↑ See reelviews.net
- ↑ See rogerebert.com
- ↑ See usatoday.com
- ↑ See cinema.de
- ↑ Inside Man. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 18, 2017 .
- ↑ See filmstarts.de
- ↑ See critic.de