The Inside Man (2006)

The Inside Man

This film was directed by Spike Lee, it is about a bank robbery. Men dress up as painters and take down CCTV cameras by shining ultra-violent lights at them. The robbers order everyone to wear overalls and masks.

They open up a vault 392, this vault has no bank record, and is the vault of the bank owner. The contents are revealed as diamonds, and then the audience find out, the owner of the bank made some dealings with the Nazis,and the diamonds belonged to his Jewish friends whom he betrayed.

Two detectives try to negotiate with the robbers, exchanging the hostages for any items they want e.g. helicopters. The robbers send out a hostage with a message, the detective plans a way to get into the bank without the robbers knowing. When the plan was about to proceed, the detective (Denzel Washington) realizes the message was bugged, and tells the officers to back down. Once the robbers hear this, they throw smoke bombs and release the hostages.

The robbers and hostages are wearing the same clothes so no one knows who the robbers are. They get away with the 'perfect bank robbery'. The film is started off with people in police stations giving statements, talking about what happened to them. Then it flashbacks onto the incident of the bank getting robbed, and we finally see who the robbers are.

Analysis of Inside Man

The music for the opening titles is bollywood. I am bengali, and I have been born and brought up being a part the Indian culture, I can understand Hindi even though it is not my own language. Over the years the more bollywood films I would watch the better my understanding would get of the language. This song is one of my favourite Indian songs, it is from the film Dil Se. 'Chaya Chaya' means walk in the shadow. Symbolically it shows the people in the car are antagonist, there about to do something wrong, there following the wrong path - thus connecting to 'Chaya Chaya.'

The music is continuous throughout the opening sequence, apart from when the robber is talking. You can hear the music slightly in the background on low volume, when he stops talking the volume increases again.

There is a steady shot of a man talking about is plan for a bank robbery. His facial expression is stiff, his eyes are wide open and this shows the audience he is powerful, his eyes are looking straight at the audience, and makes them feel involved. This is effective as it makes them feel vulnerable. As he is talking the foreground comes closer. It then dissolves onto a man walking. The camera pans to the side - following the man. The camera tilts up and cuts to the logo of a bank. It cuts to a medium shot of a van driving down the road. It cuts to an over the shoulder shot of a man driving. The cuts to close up architecture - wolf and an owl.

There is another medium shot of the car, then a point of view shot of the driver, then it cuts to an eagle. The driver is represented as an eagle, symbolically eagles are known for their strength, this shows that the the driver is bold, strong and courageous- not everyone has the courage to rob a bank. There is a fixed medium shot of the car stopping and a person in white is getting inside the van. The camera tilts up to the sky, this shot is open to interpretation, symbolically I believe the is looking up at God, God knows exactly what their going to do. This is effective because you feel calm, despite the upbeat bollywood music. There are close up shots of statutes, I think there are many images of animals, to represent the personality of the people, that are in the car. There is a deep focus in the background - camera shot of the car, the foreground is not in focus. This is effective, as it is controlling the audience on where to look. Near to the end there is a tracking shot, this makes it easier for the camera and the audience to follow the van.