Review Revue: INSIDE MAN. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING.

Bonjour Blogarinos!

I suppose I should start making this whole posting thing a regular gig. Apologies again. I swear, I didn't give the blog up for Lent! But, from now on, expect more updates here. At least I didn't pull a Josh and wait two months to post again... Any who, on with the show!

INSIDE MAN.

"A Spike Lee Joint" conjures up a certain set of expectations -- racial issues in the forefront, the disharmonious harmony of New York City, the political as personal, an actor on a dolly shot, a colorful cinematic palette, and a didactic mode of address. While all of these qualities exist in Lee's INSIDE MAN, the astounding thing is that without diluting himself, Lee demonstrates a command of genre in place of his typical near-assaultive, non-Hollywood mode of storytelling. On paper this looks like a straight Hollywood picture: produced by Brian Grazer, stars Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Clive Owen. But, the less personal approach seems to be rejuvenating the SHE HATE ME filmmaker. INSIDE MAN is a sharp, inventive and just-clever-enough heist picture that it transcends. The twisted nature of the bank robbery plot is punctuated by a series of flash-forward interviews with the hostage-suspects. Whodunit? Well, we know the who -- he (Clive Owen) told us from the get go. This is a HOWdunit. Playing out like the offspring of Bill Murray's undervalued QUICK CHANGE and MARATHON MAN, Spike Lee makes INSIDE MAN his most entertaining feature ever. Call it his CAPE FEAR. Lee is riffing with pleasure on 70's Hollywood gritty crime pictures and lets the audience know with name drops of Sydney Lumet's SERPICO and DOG DAY AFTERNOON. INSIDE MAN would not be out of place on a double feature with any of the aforementioned features. And, it isn't just Lee that gets to have all the fun. Jodie Foster vamps it up playing a mysterious negotiator, "a magnificent cunt." Her moral ambiguity sets her directly in the middle of the justice chess game between Denzel Washington and Clive Owen. Owen demonstrates his movie star ability to play a most charming villain. In fact, he may be the only major Hollywood star that can convincingly pull off both a romantic lead and a dramatic heavy. Certainly, his star continues to rise. However, INSIDE MAN belongs solely to Denzel Washington. Lee works to cleverly merge the noble Denzel of his early work with the intensity of the badass Denzel of late. Washington's Detective Keith Frazier is a veteran cop who faces real problems -- economic, romantic -- and that doesn't even begin to touch on his dilemma during the heist itself. This is his best performance at least since his Oscar-winning role in TRAINING DAY, perhaps going back further to Spike Lee's massively underrated HE GOT GAME. It has long been said that Tom Hanks is the modern-day Jimmy Stewart, but I would propose Mr. Washington is Mr. Stewart's heir apparent -- complete with a streak of darker performances (Spike Lee is Denzel's Hitchcock) that tear down his prior, more humble leading man roles. It is in his collaborations with Spike Lee that Washington gets to stretch in every dimension. INSIDE MAN, too, allows for the DO THE RIGHT THING-auteur to stretch his directing chops on what might have been a "sell out" picture. Instead of being a Hollywood hired gun, Lee has always followed his muse -- no matter how awful the results (see also GIRL 6, SUMMER OF SAM, SHE HATE ME). It seems that in this case Spike Lee's muse was in Hollywood. He is allowed his typical aesthetic trademarks (Terrence Blanchard's typically intrusive score works here, but his signature shot fails) and social commentary to become part of the language of a Hollywood film. INSIDE MAN doesn't feel particularly rebellious, but in a film where Osama Bin Laden's nephew is a very minor character there is most certainly an independent spirit at work here. In almost every conceivable way, The Spike Lee Joint INSIDE MAN is the epitome of just how good a Hollywood genre picture can actually be.

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING.
Conversely, Jason Reitman's debut THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is the epitome of how bland independent cinema can be, especially when it mimics Hollywood. Relying on its fine cast, centered by the pitch perfect Aaron Eckhart, Reitman's super-polished script works only to a varying degree. THANK YOU presents itself as a scathing satire, but it is entirely toothless. Eckhart's spinster Nick Naylor even bluntly states this point by begging the question, "Who doesn't think cigarettes are dangerous?" It kind of undermines the point. Missteps in the script are aplenty, but the film sustains its casual tone in a pleasant manner. When the jokes hit, they are guffaw-inducing (and are usually said by J.K. Simmons), but when the story strays into Nick Naylor's relationship with his son (uber-creepy Cameron Bright) the movie limps. Unfortunately, that feels like the bulk of the movie's runtime. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING's best scenes exist with Naylor's fellow spinsters "the Merchants of Death" -- alcohol and firearms lobbyists played with devilish glee by Maria Bello and David Koechner. If rookie Reitman had set the daddy issues aside and shifted the focus to the "Merchants" he might have had something here. Instead, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is a glossy, intermittently funny film that is just as empty as any Hollywood film. The film attempts to rely on smug storytelling it thinks is more clever than it actually is -- this is "first-film clever."