Desiring Machine

Spike Lee is one of those directors I never paid much attention to growing up. I finally saw Do The Right Thing probably a decade after it came out. Malcolm X was such a “controversial” film when it came out that the one local theater in my home town only agreed to play it on two or three time slots during the middle of the week in the afternoon, lest the dozen black people that lived in my home town would rise up in revolt. The reality was that at the time a handful of teenage white kids were running around wearing Oakland Raider’s caps and black bandanas, acting tough and trying live the lives of petty minor thugs. They were a joke to anybody my age (I was in high school), but the local authorities took the threat very seriously. And one explanation I remember hearing for only showing Malcolm X during the middle of a school day was to try and prevent these middle school “gerber gangsters” from getting too many ideas, or stirring up too much controversy. I guess the local movie theater proprietor was just doing his part to insure that the town didn’t collapse into riots and ruin if a handful of 13 year white kids watched the movie and got ideas. And that was a shame really, because they might have learned something in the process. After watching the movie several years later I was completely blown away by its impact. It presented a very moving story of Malcolm X and Denzel’s performance was beyond masterful.

The several Spike Lee films I have seen have never failed to satisfy. I tend to agree with a former professor of mine Steven Shaviro, who characterizes Spike Lee as the best living American director. As a purely movie going experience Spike Lee’s films rarely fail to disappoint. They work in deeply emotional and thoughtful ways to instruct and enlighten without being bogged down by ham handed didactic exposition. Issues of race and class are always present in Spike Lee’s movies and he presents them with such a gifted hand as a director you can’t help but be moved by them. I immensely enjoyed 25th hour, a film that did not garner much critical praise, but I felt was vastly underrated. Spike Lee makes movies for thinking people. In the 25th hour he portrays the final 24 hours of a successful drug dealer before he must face his prison sentence. Drugs, crime, and violence are conveyed but in a way that is always sensitive with a lot of nuanced detail. And it is this attention to detail that is Spike Lee’s real gift. He can take a conventional hollywood formula (drugs and violence) and completely turn it on its head.

Spike Lee’s latest joint Inside Man continues this tradition of excellence. Class and power seem to be the stronger backdrops in this film than race. Although issues of race are certainly present. For example there is a rather brilliant exchange between a Sikh bank emlpoyee/hostage and the police and detectives. This movie takes up the standard trope of bank heist plus hostage negotiator pitted against bad guy heavy and delivers it in a manner completely alien to the standard hollywood treatment. It is like Die Hard but without the heroism and cowboy swagger of Bruce Willis. There is a patience and methodical pace to this movie that you don’t find in the typical hostage drama. Like many of Spike Lee’s movies this one is about the characters themselves and the tangled web of commitments, motivations, and obligations that come about from their race, class, and or gender. The standard hollywood formula is to be heavy on the explosive tensions and zeal of would be heros. A kind of tension that invariably leads to a high anxiety and impatience for action. For example the mood and pace that you might find in the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. With Inside Man you will find none of that, it is mostly a story about method and a story about people. In fact there are several moments in the film where would be heros are explicitly beaten and humiliated. What we find in this movie is the interplay of identities, secrets, lies, power, and duty.

The always impeccable Clive Owen, who first came to my attention in the masterful film Croupier, stars in this film as a ring leader of a gang of thieves who take over a Manhattan bank. Denzel Washington delivers a truly perceptive performance as the lead detective and negotiator brought in to end the robbery without incident. Jodi Foster, continues her recurring role of the single white female attache to wealth and power, but this time as a cynical consultant whose job is to protect the interests of the owner of the bank, played by Christopher Plummer, after the heist goes down. Willem Dafoe plays a superb role as an eager but ultimately cooperative police captain on the scene.

The movie hinges and turns on the revelation of wealth, and the methods of its acquisition. I would say more but that would too revealing I fear. The genius of the movie is how it places the characters in an environment where their identity, actions and motivations are always the product of forces, and the confluence of race, class and gender. It is a smart film that weaves a tight plot and goes a long way to paint a fairly detailed picture of a quite elaborate heist. The films protagonists Owen and Washington do a remarkable job of providing tension but in a subtle and engaged way. The movie provides a convincing plot and sequence of events that ring true given the specific motivations and objectives of the characters. These motives are gradually revealed through the movie with a few unexpected twists in the end.

One criticism I might make about this film is that it is by far one of Spike Lee’s most mainstream movies. And in a certain sense it plays into conventional modes of good and evil as they are attached to the specific accumulation of capital and wealth. Read, the man, or rich white guy, does not come out good at all in this movie. I certainly don’t disagree with the outcome of the film, just seems like more complexity would be warranted. In some sense though there are some ambiguities and ambivalence in the ending. It was not clear to me whether certain indiscretions were left intact or if the benefactor of ill gotten wealth got his due. However, this is far from the only theme. There are nuances and complexities that make this film overall a very gratifying movie going experience. The story is tight, the cinematography detailed, and the characters thoughtful.