Inside Man


Inside Man is a 2006 American crime thriller film directed by Spike Lee and written by Russell Gewirtz. It centers on an elaborate bank heist-turned-hostage situation on Wall Street. The film stars Denzel Washington as Detective Keith Frazier, the NYPD's hostage negotiator, Clive Owen as Dalton Russell, the mastermind who orchestrates the heist, and Jodie Foster as Madeleine White, a Manhattan fixer who becomes involved at the request of the bank's founder Arthur Case to keep something in his safe deposit box protected from the robbers.
Gewirtz spent five years developing the premise before working on what became his first original screenplay. After he completed the script in 2002, Imagine Entertainment purchased it to be made by Universal Pictures, with Imagine co-founder Ron Howard attached to direct. After Howard stepped down, his business partner Brian Grazer began looking for a new director and ultimately hired Lee. Principal photography took place on location in New York City from June to August 2005. With a $45–60 million budget, it is Lee's most expensive film.
Inside Man premiered in New York on March 20, 2006, and was released by Universal Pictures across the United States four days later. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $184.4 million, becoming Lee's highest-grossing film.

Plot

In August 2005, inside a small, dimly-lit cell, Dalton Russell proclaims he has committed the perfect bank robbery. Some time prior, in New York City, masked robbers, dressed in painter coveralls and using variants of the name "Steve" as aliases, seize control of a Manhattan bank, taking patrons and employees hostage. They divide the hostages into groups and hold them in different rooms, forcing them to don masks and coveralls identical to their own, rotating them among various rooms and occasionally inserting themselves covertly into the groups. They also take turns demolishing and building a replacement fake wall in one of the bank's storage rooms.
Police surround the bank, and Detectives Keith Frazier and Bill Mitchell take charge of negotiations. Russell, the head robber, demands food be provided. The police send pizzas whose boxes have hidden listening devices. The bugs pick up someone speaking Albanian, which is later identified as propaganda recordings of the late Albanian leader Enver Hoxha, implying that the robbers anticipated the attempted surveillance.
When Arthur Case, the bank's founder and chairman, learns about the holdup, he hires fixer Madeleine White to try to protect the contents of a safe deposit box within the bank. Russell breaks into a safe deposit box and finds, among other things, documents from Nazi Germany. White, using her influence with the Mayor of New York, is introduced to Frazier and persuades him to let her talk to Russell, who agrees to allow her inside the bank so they can talk privately. Russell implies that Case started his bank with money he received for collaborating with the Nazis, resulting in many Jews dying during World War II.
Frazier demands to inspect the hostages before allowing the robbers to leave and Russell shows him around the bank. As he is being shown out, Frazier attacks Russell, but is restrained by another robber. Afterwards, Frazier explains he deliberately provoked him, concluding that Russell is not a killer. However, Frazier's conclusion is almost immediately tested when a hostage execution is staged. The execution prompts an Emergency Services Unit team into action. They plan to storm the bank, using rubber bullets to knock out those inside. Frazier discovers that the robbers have planted a listening device on the police; aware of the police plans, the robbers detonate smoke grenades and exit the bank hidden among the hostages.
The police detain and question everyone but cannot distinguish the identically dressed hostages from the robbers. A search of the bank reveals the robbers' weapons were plastic replicas. They find props showing that the hostage execution was faked, and no money or valuables appear to have been stolen. Unable to identify the suspects and unable to show a robbery has even been committed, Frazier's superior orders him to drop the case. Frazier, however, searches bank records and finds that safe deposit box No. 392 has never appeared on any records since the bank's founding in 1948. He obtains a search warrant to open it. White then confronts Frazier to persuade him to drop his investigation and during their conversation she hints at Case's Nazi dealings. Frazier refuses to stop his investigation and plays a recording he had surreptitiously made of an incriminating conversation that took place earlier between White and Frazier and the mayor. White confronts Case, who admits the box contained loose diamonds and a Cartier diamond ring he took from a Jewish friend whom he betrayed to the Nazis.
Russell's opening monologue is revealed to have happened while he hid behind a fake wall the robbers had constructed inside the bank's supply room. He emerges a week after the robbery with the contents of Case's safe deposit box, including incriminating documents and several bags of diamonds. On his way out, he bumps into Frazier, who does not recognize him. Russell exits the bank and enters a waiting car filled with his conspirators, some of whom the police had questioned. When Frazier opens the safe deposit box, he finds the ring and a note from Russell that says, "follow the ring". He confronts White, urging her to contact the Office of War Crimes Issues at the State Department about Case's war crimes. At home, Frazier finds a loose diamond and realizes that Russell slipped it into his pocket during their collision while exiting the bank.

Cast

  • Denzel Washington as Detective Keith Frazier, New York City police detective with a scandal attached to his name who is desperate to make Detective First Grade. He is assigned to negotiate with the ringleader of a Manhattan bank heist. The film marks Washington's fourth collaboration with director Spike Lee. Lee first approached Washington and gave him the opportunity to play either Frazier or Dalton Russell. Washington turned down the latter, citing concerns over the character's disguise. He cited his Broadway performance as Brutus in Julius Caesar as inspiration, stating, "I think it actually helped me prepare for Frazier—Russell Gewirtz|Russell 's script is heavy with great dialogue. My character does a lot of talking! I kind of thought of Frazier as Brutus goes to Brooklyn. For me, there is a certain rhythm and cadence of New Yorkers, and this gave me the opportunity to play a New York kind of guy who's going through a lot while dealing with this smart and challenging adversary."
  • Clive Owen as Dalton Russell, the ringleader of the elaborate bank heist. Russell first appears at the beginning of the film, breaking the fourth wall and giving an account of how he will commit the perfect bank robbery. Owen nearly turned down the role; like Washington, he expressed concerns over the character's disguise of a hood, mask and sunglasses. He said, "To play whole scenes where you're masked, you've got on sunglasses and you're wearing a hood is very weird, because a lot of acting is often through intent, and intent is shown through the eyes. To suddenly have that taken away and have this big barrier there was very disarming." Owen, however, accepted the role after further discussing the part with Lee. The script was also revised to include scenes in which Owen's face could be shown.
  • Jodie Foster as Madeleine White, Manhattan power broker who is hired to act as a "fixer" in response to the bank heist. Foster saw the film as an opportunity to collaborate with Lee, explaining, "Spike is somebody who always fascinated me, and I've loved his movies. I've always wanted to be involved in something he's making." She described her character as a woman with "a relaxed kind of witty quality to her. All the while being very strong, not having to raise her voice very much, not having to yell at anybody — she's got authority. There's seductiveness, a charm, if you will, to her ability to get into people's psyches that's been immensely fun to play. It all went way too fast for me."
  • Christopher Plummer as Arthur Case, the chairman of the board of directors and founder of the fictional Manhattan Trust bank. In response to the bank heist, Case hires White to prevent a possible career-ending situation. Inside Man is Plummer's second collaboration with Lee and Washington, following 1992's Malcolm X. He described Case as a "wonderful, rich head of all sorts of organizations — I suppose a kind of 'Enron creature' — who runs banks and other world businesses. He has tentacles everywhere, and he's a real son-of-a-bitch who's trying to keep a secret in the process."
  • Willem Dafoe as Captain John Darius, veteran captain of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit. Dafoe saw the film as opportunity to work in New York City and collaborate with Lee. He felt that the film was "about the city; it's about authority; it's about the mentality of crime; and it's about power... and payback."
  • Chiwetel Ejiofor as Detective Bill Mitchell, New York City police detective and Frazier's partner. The film is Ejiofor's second collaboration with Lee, after She Hate Me. He first learned of the film after meeting with the director. He explained, "He said he wanted me to read the script and see if I wanted to be involved. Spike asks so many people to come back and work with him in different capacities and as different types of characters."
Appearing as Russell's accomplices are:
  • Kim Director as Valerie Keepsake / Stevie, Russell's girlfriend who keeps the female hostages under control.
  • James Ransone as Darius Peltz / Steve-O, who protects Russell when Frazier attempts to apprehend him.
  • Carlos Andrés Gómez as Kenneth Damerjian / Steve, an Armenian who uses recordings on his iPod of Albanian leader Enver Hoxha to throw off the police wiretap.
  • Bernie Rachelle as Chaim, an older Jewish man who works as a professor at Columbia Law School, who teaches courses on genocide, slave labor, and war reparation claims, who is part of the plot but was not one of the "Steves", given his age and physique.
Appearing as some of the more notable hostages are Ken Leung as Wing, who was distracted in the bank before the heist by the bosomy woman standing behind him and talking loudly on her phone; Gerry Vichi as Herman Gluck, an elderly hostage suffering chest pains who is quickly released by the robbers; Waris Ahluwalia as Vikram Walia, a Sikh bank clerk whose turban is removed by the cops, which is a religious sacrilege for a Sikh male; Peter Frechette as Peter Hammond, a bank employee whose attempt to hide his cell phone from Russell results in his getting beaten up; Amir Ali Said as Brian Robinson, an 8-year-old boy who speaks with both Russell and Frazier and who plays a violent video game; Ed Onipede Blunt as Ray Robinson, Brian's father; and Marcia Jean Kurtz as Miriam Douglas, an older woman who initially refuses to strip and is forced to do so by Stevie; Kurtz reprises her role as Miriam from Dog Day Afternoon, in which she was depicted as a hostage. Lionel Pina, who also appeared in Dog Day Afternoon as a pizza delivery man, reprises his role in Inside Man as one of the policemen delivering pizzas to the bank's front doors.
Other roles include Cassandra Freeman as Officer Sylvia, Frazier's girlfriend; Peter Gerety as Captain Coughlin, Frazier and Mitchell's superior; Victor Colicchio as Sergeant Collins, the first officer to respond to the bank robbery; Jason Manuel Olazabal as ESU Officer Hernandez; Al Palagonia as Kevin, a construction worker who recognizes the language as Albanian, as he was formerly married to an Albanian-born woman; Florina Petcu as Ilina Miritia, the Albanian woman in question who explains that they are hearing recordings of Enver Hoxha; Peter Kybart as the Mayor of New York City; Anthony Mangano as an ESU officer; and Daryl Mitchell and Ashlie Atkinson as Mobile Command Officers.