Blog From The Bench

I was too lazy to follow up on my vow to write about new releases here, but let's try again:

This sort of twisty, multiple ending-y screenwriting doesn't do a whole lot for me, but on the other hand I'm not especially bugged by plot holes, so you won't hear much from me about why didn't Christopher Plummer just burn the stupid incriminating thing, and why didn't he check the box right after etc etc. My main complaint about the screenplay is the profusion of joshing, deadpan witticism, which seems to be de rigueur in action films these days and falls flat more often than not here.

Lee as auteur emerges most prominently in Jodie Foster's character, who serves no immediate plot purpose; she's the smirking incarnation of Power, officially invisible here but recognizable from any number of other Lee films (remember the cops in 25th Hour, for just one recent example?) The is the smug, callow side of Lee that I don't especially like and that overtakes his worst films. Overall Inside Man is tighter, less of a mess than 25th Hour, but Lee's filmmaking here lacks the controlled power that animated the earlier film and made it such a thrilling mess. He's fishing for a cinematic hook, and a lot of the camera movements seem pointless (what's with circling the camera around the characters as they talk, as if it's on a merry-go-round? I seem to see that more and more these days, as a sgnifier of urgency, complexity, or what? It's irritating).

On the other hand we have his mixed wonder and anger at the effects of New York as great melting pot, as in the nicely underplayed sequence with Owen and the little kid with the videogame, or the bit with the Albianian ex-wife, orthe interrogations, nicely shot through with tension and humor. I was also pleased out of all proportion with the scene where Denzel is talking to his boss and stops to cough, then resumes his lines; it's a brief eruption of the spontaneous and real into such a calculatedly "fun" enterprise, more exciting than any "shocking" twist or stale aside about Tijuana.