Inside Man

So Inside Man had a lot of potential. The story was pretty good, and most of it was there, and the acting was right where it should be considering the cast. Unfortunately it was let down by the fact that it was to long and slow in several places. While not your normal hiest movie it still needing to keep tension and suspence up but it didn't. There was a lot of stuff that could have been trimmed if not cut completely to keep the pace better.

As for the cast, top notch like I said. Unfortunately the one person that the pacing issues hurt the most was Denzel. His character never came off with the since of urgency he truly needed. It was an interesting story in that all three main characters had so close to seperate storylines. Yes, they were intertwined with the robbery but because of the construction of the overall story they were very seperate. I at times found myself kind of wanting seperate movies for each character. Especially Jodie's character. I would love to see a movie about how she got into whatever business it is she is in exactly and what she's done over the years to get so many favors from such high powered people. At the sametime that construction of the story served to hurt it as well bringing up questions that would have aided in the story I felt.


Spoilers Coming Up:


My biggest question brought about by the story was exactly how did Clive Owens's character know about the secrect Christopher Plummer's character was hiding and how did he know the evidence was in that safe deposit box? If that question had been answered the story would have been 50 times stronger than it was.

When Clive told Jodie all about Christopher's World War II crimes I thought that was a nice scene. It was intersting how at first they showed the audience that he only took those documents out of the safe deposit box but that in the end he had taken all the jewels with the exception of the one that could bring Christopher's character down.

Very ingenious how he plotted to get away with it. I thought I had it figured out but I didn't. I did however, know that they never killed anyone. It was way to obvious for some reason that they killing they made sure the cops saw was totally fake.

It's very interesting that in the end you had Clive robbing a bank and yet the real bad guy in the situation was Christopher's character. Normally I'd be like no the robber can't get away with it but really I was hoping he would get away with it and that Christopher's character better get his. Luckily while you never saw him get his for sure you knew by the way it ended that he would be.

I didn't really care for all the talk and stuff about Denzel's characters girlfriend and her wanting to get married. I know it was designed to give the character more layers and depth but it really just didn't work for the story. Since their relationship had no real baring on the overall story it took away from the rest of his character. At the very end the whole she wants to get married thing came into play only because it gave Clive away to say I told you I'd get away with it by dropping a diamond in Denzel's pocket when he bumped into him. That still would have worked without the girlfriend angle, in my opinion. I just wanted more out of Denzel's character but they never gave him anything to really bite into. Denzel being Denzel did everything he could do with what he was given. Which means it's a good thing the got Denzel or it would have fallen flat because even when he doesn't have the best stuff to work with Denzel can keep you locked in to the story.

There is no other actress who could have played Jodie's part. Everyone else would have gone just a bit over the top with it. With it be the way they walked, the attitude they had, or the way they spoke it would have been over done. One of Jodie's greatest strengths is to know exactly how far to go with a character. I always think the hardest character to create are the small ones like that, that start in one place and stay there. That character never grows or changes she's just what she is from her first moment on screen to her last. It's not easy to be a character as underlying bad as that one without playing off the story or other people. The character seems good on the service but you know the things she does aren't not the nicest and that makes her bad. Even in the end when she confronts Christopher she sticks it to him a bit but is perfectly happy to let him get away with whatever war crimes he committed. That folks is not a nice character yet you can't completely hate her because Jodie takes her right to that line. You hate the things she does but you don't hate her.



Despite those pacing problems the over all story and the cast made it worth the full price I paid to see it.