"Inside Man(streaming on Netflix) Besides being an excellent genre film, Inside Man is a testament to Spike Lee's range. The plot follows a Dog Day Afternoon-style hostage situation, a sometimes-thrilling, sometimes-goofy détente between bank robbers and police officers that is miles away, conceptually, from the barbed cultural critique of Do the Right Thing or the biographical sweep of Malcolm X. Race certainly figures into Inside Man, and the screenplay (written by Russell Gewirtz) contains moments of social commentary, some less subtle than others-but by the mid-2000s, Spike Lee had nothing left to prove on that front. And what a cast! Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Clive Owen, and, of course Denzel Washington, who outshines all of the rest. In a just world, we'd get a blockbuster this good every year."
"If you watched footage of that ladder truck pulling up to the Louvre and thought, Hmm ... needs more glamour, here is your perfectly feline fix. I will confess that the heists at the center of Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 film are not themselves that sophisticated, but the movie is really more preoccupied with how good Cary Grant looks in a tuxedo anyhow; it is very French in that way."
A recent Paris burglary involving glass-cutting power tools, priceless crown jewels, and two scooters inspired a roundup of seven heist films. Selections include Inside Man, a Spike Lee thriller that stages a Dog Day Afternoon–style hostage situation and blends social commentary on race with a screenplay by Russell Gewirtz and a starry cast led by Denzel Washington. Another pick is Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, a 1955 caper that favors glamour and Cary Grant’s charm as a retired burglar framed by a copycat. Streaming availability is noted for some titles.
Read at The Atlantic
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