Inside Man - 12th April 2006

Well, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. It wasn't half as brainless as I expected. However it did annoy me a bit.

I think once I'd read Spike Lee's name on the opening credits I expected everything to be in-your-face preaching about "issues". And so I spent the whole rest of the film deeply analysing everything to find this in-your-face preaching. Which was a bit stupid. That said, there was a lot of stuff about prejudice and multi-cultural integration in New York City. Which, to be honest, I couldn't give a toss about - I found it all too New York to be really relevant.

I couldn't fail to notice, however, an underlying misogyny to the whole film. The only female figures were presented as sex objects (Denzel's wife; the female hostages) or as evil incarnate (Jodie Foster, who is actually evil incarnate, but that's no reason to make her character so.) One of the most telling scenes was in a court house (I think. Something to do with law.) Where Jodie and Denzel were presented as diametric opposites: the black man is good, the white woman is evil. Basically. Also: Denzel calls Jodie a 'cunt' (in a 15 cert film no less), an insult which isn't particularly beloved by feminists. This whole aspect was ever so slightly dodgy.

That said, it was fairly good as a bank heist movie. It was engaging but all rather predictable, which I found quite reassuring. There were some plot details that were a bit weird (the Nazi stuff mainly, what was the point of all that?) but I thought it was cleverly executed and in some places quite funny. It was enjoyable enough but some of the ideology didn't sit well with me: 6.