Inside Man : Not just other heist movie

AR Rehman is making even greater in-roads into Hollywood. The title song for "Inside Man" is Chaiyya Chaiyya from Dil Se (a huge Bollywood hit), although I don't quite see how it fits into the grand scheme of things. Most other aspects of the movie are very logical.

Heist movies like Ocean's 11 are good fun, though I wouldn't classify them as my favourite genre. I never recall them when I am penning down my favourites lists anywhere. Inside Man, however is an exceptional movie. Although one could arguably get just about the same effect by watching this one on DVD, I was so impressed by the whole movie, that I'd recommend watching it in the theaters just because those guys really deserve that money.

I don't know where to begin with the compliments. The cast is superb... Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen, Willem Dafoe. I haven't seen such a talented line-up in quite a while and all doing such a fine job.

I read on IMDB that Spike Lee movies (like this one) have a lot of political messages. Helping the cause of Sikhs in the United States is an important one in this movie. A Sikh character in the movie talks about how he gets identified as an Arab wherever he goes. Hopefully a successful movie such as this will help reduce any race-motivated violence against them.

The one problem with the movie is not being able to really describe it without giving out some of the suspense. The basics of the story are that a brilliant bank robber (played by Clive Owen) takes over a bank and holds some people hostage. Denzel Washington plays Detective Frazier, an NY cop, who fights a battle of wits against the bank robber. The story is very hard to predict. I think this is an amazing piece of writing and I'd be watching out for other movies by Russell Gewirtz. As heist movies go, this one is as good as it gets.