to start, this has to be (in my humble opinion) the least "spike lee" spike lee film i have seen other than 25th hour, which sucked. and i have seen every spike lee film save one. that's not to say that there aren't standard fare spike lee elements, namely his "signature shot" (which is forced, for sure), white cops who use racial slang, black protagonists who have really hot and willing girlfriends (because apparently hot black girlfriends whose only function is to be sexy are positive alternative images for black females), and a horns driven soundtrack by terence blanchard (who has been composing for lee for the majority of his films).
now for the good things (not that the above are necessarily bad). matthew libatique (DP of such films as pi and requiem for a dream), a very clever plot, and an awareness that the "heist" film has been done many times over. so basically the film takes your expectations and completely spins them around. this was very much appreciated, as i went into the film very skeptical of how my attention would be held for 2 hours.
the film had some interesting things to say about the nature of "your sins will find you out", but they were cleverly disgused as the means justifying an end. it kinda felt like the double speak of V for vendetta, but not nearly on that scale. still, the film was very entertaining (yes i said it) and intrigued me to the very end. can we please get denzel to play something other than a cop, though? i realize he did malcom x, i'm just saying the majority of his roles have him wielding a 9mm and saying things like, "this ain't no bank robbery!". oh well. good movie. 4 out of 5 thumbs up.
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