Inside Man

Well what a pleasant surprise to find an outright excellent crime movie based loosely on a team of horrendous mass murdering serial killers who contracted to (and were part of) the mafia decades ago.

I don't understand the average reviews here unless of course they simply skimmed it or weren't aware of the backstory. To call this a cliche is ridiculous - these events really happened (except for the disgruntled cop) and last I looked, life, reality, is not a cliche.

I've been a member of IMDB for 8 years but only done a handfull of reviews, I'm pretty lazy & otherwise busy so only pop out when the occasion really demands - like here.

The standard of acting here is sky high. Emile is great, but watch the De Meo character, Lucy Hale in a few scenes which she steals as the ice cold killers' moll, James Russo as the stone killer elder mobster and especially the Senter character. A nest of serial killer vipers ably portrayed and I had the greatest pleasure in watching this movie. Real life is never a cliche...

"In that moment I realized, I didn't deserve her."

Inside Man is directed by Danny A Abeckaser and stars Emile Hirsch, Lucy Hale, Jake Cannavale and Ashley Greene.

Originally titled The Gemini Lounge but then retitled to the much more generic title Inside Man. The story (supposedly based on true events although to what degree I'm not sure.) follows Bobby Belucci (Hirsch) a disgraced police detective whose life spirals out of control once he discovers his wife (Ashley Greene) having an affair. After a public meltdown which leads to her leaving him for good and him being demoted as a cop he tries to seek redemption by going undercover to infiltrate the Gambino crime family's "DeMeo Crew."

Sort of a mix of Goodfellas and Donnie Brasco with Hirsch emulating both Ray Liotta and Johnny Depp but it actually works or at least for me it did. This is maybe his best role he's done since probably Alpha Dog or Into The Wild. Unfortunately not everything about this was strong because I actually feel like this lost steam as it went along and by the time the last 10 minutes rolled around and the ending happened I was kind of underwhelmed with how things ended. I feel like this movie missed a more interesting storytelling opportunity to have Hirsch's character break bad so to speak it sort of hinted at it but since this was supposedly based on true events I guess they wanted to honor the real life story.

Lucy Hale I thought was also really good here unfortunately I feel like she wasn't given enough to do and there was another storytelling aspect with her character that I feel like this movie should've taken advantage of but they didn't. If you decide to watch this you'll know what I'm talking about when it happens during the last 10 minutes or so. Overall Inside Man was better than expected and Emile Hirsch gives one of his better performances here so it's worth watching for that but overall even though this was based on real life events I feel like this movie played things too safe which led to this just feeling like a generic mob/ gangster movie by the end of this. Curious if other people have similar feelings that I did about this.

Inside Man starts decent enough with Emile Hirsch playing a cop with anger managment problems who convinces his captain to let him go undercover to infiltrate the mob.

The film attempts to copy Scorcese's style with Emile Hirsch narrating over slow motion montages scored with guitar / rock music. There is harsh realistic violence, scenes of hits, people being tortured, cut to pieces and being disposed in garbage bags. There are a few tense scenes.

However the film is less than the sum of its parts. It fails to connect. Where Goodfellas or Casino pulled you in, made everything feel grandiose and meaningful, the plot here amounts to very little, and Emile Hirsch's protagonist is neither interesting or engaging. His acting is a mixed back here. Great in some scenes, deer in the headlight in others. There's no way experienced mobsters wouldn't have sniffed him out as he was flinching and staring in utter horror during the killings.

The mobsters themselves are sadly forgettable. There's no colorful characters here portrayed by veteran actors like Pesci or DeNiro.

Inside man isn't unwatchable, I was just bored by it.

Quite enjoyed this easy-to-digest undercover cop effort. Film takes place in the 1980's and you can tell they put a lot of effort into costume (especially Lucy Hale) and set decoration.

Some films, like this one are just easy to sit thru - the story is simple, pacing is even (meaning most scenes don't lag) and the dialogue progresses the plot and adds some humor as well.

They also use narration the correct way, by allowing the lead to guide the audience (similar to Goodfellas) thru the story. It's not heavy handed or over used, which is a tricky way to write a screenplay.

Overall I enjoyed this film, it doesn't try to do too much, but creates a nice 80's atmosphere and does most things correctly. Only problem is they once again use CGI for gunshot wounds. Please, directors...stop doing this! It's an immediate downgrade on any film. 6.3/10.

The director here seems to have no idea how to tell this story. The way some scenes come across seem so obviously wrong, as if the story, the director and the actors are not entirely on the same page. They haven't thought the film through well enough. This easily could've been at least a decent film with these actors and the crime story. However the film leaves us mostly just stunned in disbelief as to how badly this story is conveyed to us at certain times. The writing is also quite weak in some areas, and much of it just seems regurgitated from other classic crime films, (Which could still be reasonably good if done well.). At the very start of the film, it actually does seem fairly good, until you start to see all the problems I've previously mentioned here. At that point, it just starts to become ridiculous.

2.5/10.