Review by Gary Tooze

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Description: Academy Award winner Denzel Washington, Academy Award nominee Clive Owen and Academy Award winner Jodie Foster star in this intense and explosive crime thriller. The perfect bank robbery quickly spirals into an unstable and deadly game of cat-and-mouse between a criminal mastermind (Owen), a determined detective (Washington), and a power broker with a hidden agenda (Foster). As the minutes tick by and the situation becomes increasingly tense, one wrong move could mean disaster for any one of them. From acclaimed director Spike Lee comes the edge-of-your-seat, action-packed thriller that The Wall Street Journal calls "a heist film that’s right on the money."

 

 

The Film:

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.
 

Inside Man surfaces on Blu-ray in a superior transfer than the HD-DVD edition that came forth from Universal in 2007.  The image quality looks extremely competent in representing Lee's fine thriller. Even the high-contrast saturations (see captures of large-breasted girl and the one following of the 2 detectives ogling her) for 'future interview' events seems to support the desired look more acutely with prominence given to the blown-out characteristics - although this may appear problematic for some. It probably looked quite similar to this theatrically only 3 years ago. There is a nice preponderance of grain on this dual-layered Blu-ray with almost 45 Gig of the dual-layering taken up. There is no gloss. Colors aren't overly exhilarating and with the heavier texture - give a realistic look to the film on hi-def disc. With the Inside Man's distinct style - the move to 1080P has benefited the presentation to extol the visual conventions - making them appears less like weaknesses and more as they were intended. This is a huge leap from the DVD versions which couldn't define those, more nebulous, qualities.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Universal put some real effort into the audio transfer with a responsive DTS-HD track at a healthy 4127 kbps - plus six separate foreign language DUBs in DTS. There is not an abundance of action in the film, as one might have expected from the 'genre', but - as in all Spike lee's films - the background music plays a bit part in setting mood - in the case of Inside Man it is suspense. Voices are crisp and even and the mix has some separation - regardless that the action characteristics are not excessive it still has some real depth. There are a host of subtitles supporting my Momitsu's revelation that the disc is, indeed, region free - playable on Blu-ray machines world-wide.

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
I've seen this 4 times now and the Blu-ray easily gives the best presentation. It's a layered film with great performances and a taut, driven narrative. I can see myself re-visiting it yet again in the future when I'm in the mood for an intelligent bank-heist drama. The price is right and despite the limitations in any new extra features - this still have excellent value for a home theater night of thrills and suspense. Yeah - we recommend. 

Gary Tooze

May 16th, 2009