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Parents' Guide to

Inside Man

By Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Smart heist movie is not for children.

Movie R 2006 129 minutes
Inside Man Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 12+

Based on 2 parent reviews

Emthall
Emthall Parent of 13-year-old
December 4, 2021
age 12+

Suspensful

Lots of bad language but otherwise more like an intense PG-13 movie.
1 person found this helpful.
4Spice
4Spice Adult
December 13, 2009
age 12+

good movie 12 and over

very good movie almost as good as oceans eleven very smart worth watching 12 and over kids wont under stand it
See all 2 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Set in New York City, INSIDE MAN centers on "the perfect bank robbery" planned by Dalton Russell (Clive Owen). Clad in painters' uniforms and masks, Dalton's team enters the bank at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway, disables the surveillance cameras, and takes all the customers, workers, and security guards hostage. By the time detectives Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and his partner Mitch (Chiwetel Ejiofor) arrive, the crime scene is taped off, a mini-city populated by shooters and uniforms, hulking vans and vocal gawkers. Inside the bank, the robbers dress the hostages like themselves, move them from room to room so they can't get to know one another, and dig up a wall in the storage room. Keith has to make nice with turf-protecting Emergency Services Unit Captain Darius (Willem Dafoe), still mad at him for some case they worked years ago. As time ticks, bank board chairman Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) sends an excruciatingly intelligent fixer, Madeline White (Jodie Foster), who knows how to reach the chief robber in charge. And yet, she can't quite solve this puzzle, which involves a special personal safe deposit box inside the bank.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (2 ):
Kids say (20 ):

Tense, showy, and shrewd, Inside Man is Spike Lee's most accessible film, but that's not what makes it brainy or galvanizing. Indeed, its cleverest moments involve odd and telling details: The credits sequence use of "Chaiyya Chaiyya," the white-guy who recognizes but cannot translate Albanian language, and perhaps most energetically, the Sikh who resents being profiled as "Arab."

While the heisty plot includes the sorts of cunning turns familiar since Die Hard, its more compelling aspect is its New Yorkness. The city is everywhere in the film, outside and inside, but mostly, it's the incisive focus, impetus, and consequence. In between the figuring and plotting, the film flash-forwards to exit interviews with the hostage as Mitch and Keith press them to confess their collaboration. This array -- anxious, audacious, arrogant -- is clearly made up for "New York" embodiments, persevering, traumatized, post-9/11. Competing traumas, leveling oppressions, comparable resiliences. It's definitely New York.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the way the film uses the generic bank robbery plot to evoke more profound social and political issues, like racism, corruption, ambition, and post-9/11 fears about surveillance and terrorism. How do Keith and the robber, Dalton, come to understand each other's motives and goals? How does the movie compare the moral positions of upper-crusty characters (who own or run the bank) and "regular folks," who bank or work at the institution?

Movie Details

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