Inside Man

As far as my taste of movies are concerned, I am a big fan of suspense thrillers and have seen most of the films in bollywood of that genre and some of them from hollywood also (mostly the murder mysteries and the famous 50s 0r 60s black noirs). This film, Inside Man, is again a suspense thriller directed by Spike Lee but this time its about a bank robbery i.e. a perfect bank robbery.
There are times after watching such movies when I am left spellbound but watching this movie for the first time some 10-11 months back I was not only spellbound but was completely shocked. Since then I am thinking of writing something on this but everytime before starting I watch it once again and something interesting happens to me regarding my view on this film. This change of my views is so drastic that presently I am holding a view that is completely contrary to what I had when I first watched it. Well if that happens to everybody I simply don't know but this is a very regular affair with me. Very recently, I watched 'Perfect Stranger' and wrote a full blog of praise on that and now when I think of that movie, my opinion is a lot different than what was written by me.
Anyways, coming to Inside Man, I have already said about my experience when I first watched it. I was so overwhelmed by the movie that I right away watched it again. I was completely shocked right from the start of the movie. The movie started off with the audio of famous hindi song 'Chhaiya Chhaiya' in the opening credits. I was so shocked that I stopped and checked whether I was watching the right movie or not and found out that it really started with that and then provoked me to browse and search for details of this song on internet and found out that in an international poll conducted by BBC about most popular songs of the world it was 9th in the list.
Coming back to the movie again, the opening scene with Clive Owen introducing his character Dalton Russell was a terrific scene. What followed was some 2 hours of terrific screenplay and a suspense that was enough for raising goosebumps on several occasions. It looked to me a completely different movie with something really great in it. In very short, this was how I felt about the movie at the first sight.
Nevertheless, as I went on watching it again and again, my opinion kept changing. Now, when I think of it, it only looks to me as yet another Hollywood movie with NYPD and some private agent engaged in denying a holocaust; something like Volcano or Men In Black or Mission Impossible or the ever famous in India, Spiderman to name a few. Well in these cases there is somebody fighting against some paranormal power in order to save the city as well as his own pride. Inside Man also seems to be one such thing with one difference that here there is no paranormal power to fight with but again you have a paranormal plan of a bank robbery to deal with. You again have a hostage situation, NYPD officially entitled to deal with it but a private detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) is there whose job is at stake and has to crack this case in order to revive his career as well as marry his girlfriend and above all you have the extraordinary robbery going on.
These are only small points that I could recollect about this movie. All in all, for a first timer it is quite an entertainer as a suspense thriller. Clive Owen and Denzel Washington are good at their job. Jodie Foster' character is a waste and others have very little to do with this. Full points to the story and screenplay and direction is also above par.
For somebody who doesn't believe in putting much thought into movies, it is a great experience but somebody like me who thinks what was good or bad about the movie this is just another hollywood flick.