Could you direct me to the computer games department please?

Elastic disbelief required. If you are willing to stretch a bit then this slightly over 2 hours piece of hokum is entertaining enough. A cross between a what-is-it? and a how-done-it? The answer to neither question challenges the little grey cells over much.

There are a few stereotypical spats on the way: black negotiator cop v white ‘blow-‘em-away’ captain (Willem Dafoe – seldom out of first gear); bright black cop v super-bright amoral money-grubbing white bitch (Foster – uncomfortable and miscast); moral black cop v white banker obscenely rich with obscenely obtained wealth (Christopher Plummer unevenly directed to an uneven performance); and of course, instinctively racist patrolman put down by fast-talking black cop – superior in street cred, rank and self-respect.

You will detect a theme here. It is difficult territory but I really would like to see a powerful actor like Washington return to playing an interesting character who happens to be black (Crimson Tide) – rather than yet another super cool ‘Hollywood-black’ cop who happens to be a character (eg Alonzo Harris in Training Day). Harris was one of Washington’s worst, mannered, self-indulgent roles. Without the generous underplaying of Ethan Hawke the film would have been unwatchable – a latter day Shaft – no tongue, no cheek, no fun. Just the kind of OTT playing the Academy likes to recognise. A kind of hip inverted racism.

The black/white imagery in The Inside Man certainly resonates but to no real purpose. Clive Owen and his fellow heisters spend most of the film invisible behind full-face white masks with the obligatory black shades. As written, the film has absolutely no racial connotation. But it is as if everything Lee directs and Washington plays must always carry a racial subtext or agenda. I do just wonder whether the millions of immensely diverse African-Americans, let alone other non-white ethnic groups, are insulted by this homogenised, hip, super-cool, street-wise ‘Hollywood-black’ identity? I do not deny of course that inequality based upon race is still rife, even endemic, in western and especially American culture. But with African Americans now beginning to break into the highest levels of American society, political, legal, cultural etc, I wonder whether the stereotypical ‘Hollywood-black’ characters that we find even in so-called serious films like the good but way over-rated Crash, are becoming counter-productive? Doesn’t the issue of endemic inequality in western culture, especially American, begin to look even deeper than the appalling history of African Americans alone?

To make a point – try this experiment: list ten prominent African Americans. Make the areas as wide as you can across American culture. Now: try the same exercise for Native Americans. How many Native American politicians, writers, judges – even, so help us, actors – can you name? And it is worth remembering Native Americans have been in American longer than any other race and were decimated and traded as slaves even before the horrors visited upon slaves from Africa and the West Indies. This is not to trade injustices or seek to balance them. But I wonder whether yet another Washington – first I’m black, second I’m a character – mannered performance has become a cliché undermining the very issue it seeks to address or redress. And it is worth noting that this clichéd slick image is wholly ‘macho-centric’, all the women in the lives of these HB heroes are cyphers happy to settle for being sexy but submissive ‘bitches’ there to point up the super-masculinity of their uber-cool masters in return for a bit of hip chat and ‘looking-in-the-mirror’ charm.

I digress. Straight-to-camera Clive Owen intrigues us with his motivation – ostensibly, “I’m doing this because I can”. The battle of wits between Owen and Washington is trite and unexciting compared say with the excellent tussle between Kevin Spacey and Samuel Jackson in the far superior Negotiator. The plot and denouement are also in comparison much less satisfying. The Jodie Foster storyline seems tacked on just to have the excuse to get her name on the marquee. In a part that echoes Faye Dunaway’s Vicki in The Thomas Crown Affair but with none of the sexual tension or integrated characterisation, this fine actress is driven to mugging and over-playing. She also seems at one point not to have mastered the art of wearing high-heeled shoes. Clive Owen yet again threatens but fails to deliver, a really first-class performance. The fault of the writing not his skill.

A reasonable bit of occasionally intriguing fun that flatters to deceive.

Filed under: 3 star, Action, Detective, Drama, Hollywood, Humorous, Philosophical, Spike Lee