Dalton Russell (Owen) is committing the perfect crime, an immaculately planned heist in a major Wall Street bank that involves locking the doors with some 50 hostages inside. Now there's a standoff between his team and the police, led by ambitious, exhausted detective Frazier (Washington), his partner (Ejiofor) and a local cop (Dafoe). Meanwhile, a fiercely powerful mystery woman (Foster) has been sent on a mission by the bank's owner (Plummer) to recover something very, very important from inside the vault.

What could have been a ripping cops-and robbers-thriller is undermined by an unsteady tone. Spike Lee bracingly combines raw camera work with earthy performances and a startlingly authentic sound mix. But some sequences are swamped by Terence Blanchard's soaring disaster movie score and flashy camerawork. And even worse is the way Lee and Gewirtz play their cards too soon, giving up secrets so none of the story's many twists and revelations are surprising when they arrive. This removes all tension and leaves the extended middle section to drag badly.

What saves it is the cast. Owen is piercing and very cool, which is some achievement since he's masked most of the time. Washington and Ejiofor have terrific rapport, coming vibrantly to life especially in the witty interrogation clips. And Foster layers so much swaggering feistiness into her go-to woman that we never want her to leave the screen. It's in the interaction between the characters that the film zings to life.

So it's a shame the overall structure is such a muddle. There's also a clear sense that Lee has added a few perceptive but unsubtle racial barbs, as well as his usual misogyny (in the lingering shots of female hostages forced to strip to their underwear). Fortunately, he also shows off his skill at capturing natural, edgy performances and centring on characters rather than plot structure. It's intriguing and astute, but not actually very smart.

themes, violence, language

1.Mar.06