One of the best films Spike Lee has directed this past decade is Inside Man (2006), which was about a bank robbery that turned out to be more than that. Inside Men
is a British mini-series whose bare bones could be similarly described.
Written by Tony Basgallop and directed by James Kent, it stars Steven
Mackintosh as John, the manager of a cash-counting house, a facility
that stores large amounts of paper money for banks and retailers. Ashley
Walters co-stars as Chris, the security guard whose best friend,
Marcus, a laborer there, played by Warren Brown, comes up with a plan to
steal £172 million from the facility.
The structure of the series is similar to that of NBC's recent adaptation The Firm.
That series began with an intense, action-oriented scenario and then it
would flashback to months before. Each episode was a piece or step that
explained or returned you to that original scenario. The fourth season
of ABC's Lost was also structured this way. For Inside Men,
the scenario is the gang of thieves in rubber masks with rifles taking
siege of the cash facility, which occurs in September. We're propelled
into the anxiety, chaos and mystery of it and then we're slingshot back
into January to see how it all began.
In four episodes, we ping-pong between 10 months, seeing the origins all
the way through to the aftermath of this crime. The show does
eventually circle and deliver us to where it started. Actually, it
replays the robbery, which you see in the beginning. As I noted in my
review of The Debt (2011),
which also replays a scene within itself, the second time that the
scene is depicted isn't tedious because it's layered with all the
information we've gathered in the previous episodes. It's still
thrilling, even when you know the outcome because we feel the other
elements at work.
The characters are well fleshed out with their own motivations. All the
actors perform brilliantly. The narrative is never boring. It kept me
glued to the screen. It's very smartly written. It's not melodramatic.
It feels very real. Even the secondary characters like the women in each
of the men's lives are well done too and get some pretty good material,
if not as much.
For example, Kierston Wareing who was in Fish Tank (2010) and like Steven Mackintosh and Warren Brown was also in the highly-acclaimed, British series Luther
plays Gina, Marcus' love interest. Gina is like a Lady Macbeth and
Wareing plays her well. Irfan Hussain who plays Kalpesh, the leader of
the "outside men" gets a great bit to chew also.
I simply did not find a single thing wrong with this TV show. As far as crime dramas go, I would rank it up there with Breaking Bad or Justified.
Five Stars out of Five.
Rated TV-14.
Running Time: 1 hr.
Available on Demand
via BBCAmerica or Amazon Instant
