Spike is Back

"Spike is back," my friend said as the credits to Inside Man came up.
Indeed, he was.
This is one of Lee's most commercial movies in years, one about a bank robbery heist in the spirit of Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon.
But it still retails that Spike Lee edge, those little touches that Lee sprinkles throughout his movie.
The movie draws you in from the beginning when we are introduced to Dalton Russell, played by Clive Owen. Russell introduces himself and says he is pulling off the perfect bank robbery.
And from there, you spend the rest of the movie figuring out how Russell does that. Denzel Washington plays a detective facing an Internal Affairs investigation and Jodie Foster is a powerful woman who specializes in "fixing" things, in this case the bank president played by Christopher Plummer who has a secret hiding in the bank vaults.
There's a lot of waiting around in this movie, but Lee never lets the pace slacken. Instead, he shows off multi-ethnic New York, and the dialogue is sharp and funny. Seeing Denzel Washington work is a treasure in itself.
And the payoff in the end is satisfying. Your face breaks into a smile as you discover the nice treats that Inside Man offers.
Is there a message? Isn't there always one in a Spike Lee Joint? But Lee doesn't let his need to make a point get in the way of telling a good story.
As my friend said, this film comes across as the work of a veteran director, as if all the lessons he has learned over his more than two decades of work came together on this movie.
Spike Lee is back. Thank God.