Inside Man

Foster's slick performance as "fixer" Madeleine White adds to the intrigue and suspense, along with the supporting characters...

[A] wily thriller, which revitalizes a familiar premise by turning it inside out.

As unexpected as some of its plot twists is the fact that this unapologetic genre movie was directed by Spike Lee, who has never sold himself as Mr. Entertainment. But here it is, a Spike Lee joint that's downright fun.

Supremely annoying and nonsensical.

A slick, kinetic and relatively straightforward -- which is to say enjoyably twisty-turny -- tranche of cat-and-mouse procedural.

I gloried in the sheer spectacle of Jodie Foster as Madeline White, an exquisitely groomed, fearlessly feline fixer striding on her high heels and her high horse into one supposedly perilous situation after another.

A straight-forward but enthralling caper that does right by its characters while offering Lee the wiggle room to poke at a few social issues along the way.

Inside Man is a run-of-the-mill heist film, something that merely fills up time, directed by Spike Lee.

The best of its kind since The Usual Suspects.

The interweaving of backstory and some taut subplots deepen the action, orchestrated with such precision that each scene innately ratchets up the stakes from its previous frame.