2006 ROUNDUP: INSIDE MAN (Lee)

Anthony Lane wrote something about BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, the Woody Allen film from around a decade ago or so. He wrote about how Hollywood does not need great pictures, but rather good ones. The staples - the romantic comedies, the thrillers, the period dramas - these needed to be less formulaic, more interesting and unique, and the masterpieces could take a backseat for a little while. Another NYC auteur, this time Spike Lee, takes this notion and applies it towards the crime picture genre, with solid, if not spectacular, results.

It's easy to foget how good of an actor Denzel Washington is, mainly because I've seen so few Denzel Washington movies. TRAINING DAY was, I think, the last one that I watched, and I can't imagine what the one before that was. He is completely cool and collected in this as a hostage negotiator who slowly starts to realize that the bank robbery he's working isn't really a bank robbery at all. Clive Owen is Dalton Russel, the inside man, who knows a lot about the wartime dealings of the head of the board of director's at the bank. Jodie is just sort of there. The show belongs to Denzel, of course, but you probably already knew that. My favorite part was Clive Owen. He spends most of the film with his face covered, but there is a scene where he finds what he's looking for, the thing that'll make him rich and expose a wealthy man for the savage he is, and he pulls his mask off, staring longingly at the thing he's spent so long planning. Owen's face is so interesting, scruffy, deep lines running down his cheeks. Lee shoots it in close up, and it's beautiful.

Things start out with a relatively standing heist picture, people talking about "the perfect crime" and whatnot, but things soon start to unravel and it becomes about something else entirely. Lee can't resist throwing in some references to race relations in New York, and the first filmmaker to overtly reference 9/11 in a film also shows us Foster and Washington acting in front of a large "We Will Never Forget" banner. These touches never really come around to mean anything greater, though, just an everyday occurence in the melting pot.

I had to get on IMDb to check out Clive Owen's character's name, and of course ended up spending ten minutes or so reading the threads that are posted there. A mistake, as most trips to the IMDb usually end up being. While people debate whether or not Spike Lee is the worst director of all time and how this movie "sucks", they all seem to sort of miss the point. INSIDE MAN is a good movie; it never achieves greatness, but it never really tries to, either. It's obvious that Lee has fun with the material, and the cast is also laughably good. It's a solid little heist flick that has some interesting twists and turns. Note: this is coming from a person who typically hates any kind of movie that "twists and turns".

In a larger context, this is exactly what Hollywood needs. Take a look at the top seven films in America, in terms of moneymaking, and then look at their rottentomatoes scores:

01. NORBIT - 09%
02. HANNIBAL RISING - 17%
03. BECAUSE I SAID SO - 07&
04. THE MESSENGERS - 13%
05. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM - 45%
06. EPIC MOVIE - 02%
07. SMOKIN' ACES - 27%

All studio pictures, all released nationwide in multiplexes from New York, across the flyover states, all the way to LA. If even half of these were as good as INSIDE MAN, then perhaps I'd watch more Hollywood pictures in theatres. Maybe a lot more people would, come to think of it. INSIDE MAN never attempts to tackle any big issues in any meaningful way. It knows its place, and it makes its claim as the little sudio picture that could. That Spike Lee is also releasing documentaries about Hurricane Katrina is important and admirable; he is able to make these documentaries because movies like INSIDE MAN are seen by the larger public. I think it's great that someone like Michael Heneke is allowed to try his hand at a Hollywood picture. The US remake of FUNNY GAMES will be almost certainly be inferior to the original, but the fact that it'll make Heneke some more money, and perhaps allow him to make movies for a little while longer, is worthy of note.

Perhaps what we need are great filmmakers making good pictures, at least for a little while. Just a thought. INSIDE MAN won't make my top 10, but it never set out to do so, either. This is, in its own way, worthy of note.

2005 ROUND UP: COCAINE COWBOYS (Corben)

Yet another larger-than-life documentary, COCAINE COWBOYS attempts to capture the glitzy, gawdy world of 1980s Miami, complete with a soundtrack provided by Jan Hammer. From the opening credits, what we are seeing is stylized and cool and funny and so very over the top. That it never becomes self-parody is to its own credit. What could have become an exercise in camp or irony instead ends up being a love letter to the times and places.

Perhaps it may strike some people as odd that drugs could be presented in a loving light. While the documentary definitely exposes some of the uglier elements of the drug world (the insane bloodbaths that result from the trade), it also takes care to point out that men like Mick Munday and John Roberts, key figures in the Miami scene, were businessmen, who believed in the philosophy of supply-and-demand. They are providing a service to the people of Miami. The further irony of this situation is that the money they make they pour back into the Miami community, fostering development and commerce where there was once seemingly only blight and ruin. Roberts claims he spent $50 million in Miami restaurants, car dealerships, nightclubs, bars, tailors, and the like. COCAINE COWBOYS never explicitly points the finger at the entire city of Miami as an accomplice, but it does take care to note that there were virtually no cops there until things turned violent.

And, yes, they turn violent. The second half of COCAINE COWBOYS is not until the second half of SCARFACE, as we see the result of such an incredible amount of money being made in such a fast time, and in an unchecked industry. A central figure at this time is Griselda Blanco, who is simply too horrific to be made up. She is linked with the Colombian cartels (as Roberts and Munday and most of the people in the film are) and is said to be involved with some 200 murders. The people interviewed take care to note that Blanco was "the godmother" and she did not fuck around. She had people killed for looking at her wrong. In the film's darkest moments, we hear from her ace, Rivi, that she ordered him to kill a man who had disrespected her son. Rivi and a driver roll up on the guy, shooting into his car, but missing the target. They later learn that there was a 2 year old in the car and that they managed to shoot him. Rivi is terrified, but Blanco loves this, and soon is offering larger rewards for her men to kill the children of people who owe her money. She is, apparently, evil incarnate.

COCAINE COWBOYS, with its neon opening credits and cheesy score, could easily have veered off into parody, but it manages to play everything straight. Through a mix of old news clips, interviews, and re-enactments, we see how things played out through the media and the eyes of the people who lived and trafficked there. Perhaps the greatest strength is the directors allowing the players to tell their own story without injecting themselves into the mix. I guess I'm just sick of the modern documentary style of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock (which was really influenced by the self-involved, docudrama "science fiction" films of my favorite director, Werner Herzog) and find it refreshing when someone, like Billy Corben, has enough faith in the source material and people involved to tell the story. COCAINE COWBOYS may make a top 20 of 2006, not top 10, but it's infinitely entertaining and engaging and an interesting slice of life in a certain place at a certain time.