I saw Inside Man last night with some friends. I hadn’t heard much about it up to that point and I actually had to seek out the trailer to try to learn a bit about it beforehand. It scored well at Metacritic (76) and, in particular, The Onion A.V. Club and Stephanie Zacharek at Salon — two critics that I trust — liked it. Having said that, I enjoyed the movie, but it didn’t quite make sense to me at the end.
Up until the final moments of the movie, it seemed to make sense. At the end, though, I was just left asking “What just happened here?”. Fortunately, Ask MetaFilter is around for just these type of things :). I posted a question there about the movie (yes, with spoilers) and some readers have chimed in to help clear up a few things. I still don’t quite have my head wrapped around it, but I’m a little closer to understanding it than I was before.
I saw it this weekend, too. After reading that Metacritic thread, I realize I didn’t miss anything, but yes — it had a weak and rambling ending. I think part of the problem was that the movie was too long. Doesn’t anyone edit anymore? There were at least 30-40 minutes of useless footage in that film, and 15-20 of it was the end. The movie had an interesting premise but (like so many movies these days) just failed to stay focused all ther way through (especially at the end). Just my 2 cents.
Jared: I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that it was 30-40 minutes too long, but some cutting may helped with the pace a bit.