Review: Inside Man (2006)

Title: Inside Man
Year: 2006
Starring: Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer
Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller
MPAA: R for language and some violent images
Kids-In-Mind.com: 4.6.10
My Rating: 6.4
Up or Down: Thumb Down
IMDb Rating: 7.7

Synopsis: Four conspirators, led by Dalton Russell (Owen) rob a large bank. They use clever tactics to keep the police away. The lead negotiator is Keith Frazier (Washington). The owner of the bank, Arthur Case (Plummer), who has some secret, unnamed item kept in this branch, hires Madeleine White (Foster), who for a living keeps the wealthy's interests, to retrieve the item. She fails after discovering that taking this item was Russell's main objective the robbery.

My Take: I can't figure out why this film was so well-received. The premise was really cool; the bank robbery was a lot of fun to watch. But probably 20% of this movie B.S. dialogue between cops or redundant interviews with hostages. They took a good forty-five seconds to show an exchange between the cops and an interviewee, the whole content of which was the cops' comment on her large breast size and her cracking a lame joke "Oh, so I violated section 34DD?" Gimme a break... Focus on the movie; you have a cool story and you're making jokes like that? Despite its 86% approval on Rotten Tomatoes, one negative review listed for this film from Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian newspaper in the UK sums my thoughts up exactly. "Supremely annoying and nonsensical."

Concerning the rating: This film's 6.4 puts it in a tie for 146th of 162 films rated. It is tied with the 2004 family comedy "Shrek 2".

Have a film you'd like me to see and review? E-mail me at richard@movienightreviews.net.