Starring: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster

7 out of 10 stars: I'll be honest -- I had pretty much given up on Spike Lee. I was dazzled by the fun of She's Gotta Have It and the energy of Do the Right Thing, and happy to bask in Lee's harnessing of Denzel Washington's star power in Mo Better Blues and as Malcolm X. But it seems that after the blazing glory of Do the Right Thing, nothing ever lived up to that initial promise. There were flashes of greatness here and there, but just as many problems too, and soon the liabilities outweighed the assets. After Do the Right Thing I felt duped, cheated. I struggled with movies that I wanted to like -- such as Summer of Sam -- that flailed about all over the place, and showcased none of the tight storytelling that marked Lee's earlier work. There was a lot of razzle-dazzle on display, but it was pretty much hollow. I had little patience for a director who fell back on both camera tricks and movie archetypes, who shoved his images in our faces that felt like they should be "important" but didn't live up to the hype, and one who didn't know how to create a credible female character of any kind. I was worn down, worn out, and the magic had worn off.

And then along comes Inside Man, a nice, nifty, taut little thriller that, while no great shakes in terms of cinema, is a welcome return to some kind of form for Lee. Working from a densely plotted and nicely crafted screenplay by Russell Gewirtz, Lee has finally seemed to snap back into shape. Indulgences have been left to a minimum, momentum has been restored, actors have been pulled into sharp relief, and overall there's a sense of ... excitement. Lee still does some show-offy stuff -- whenever there's an opportunity for a crane shot or a long pan, Lee is right there to swoop in -- and fiddles around with some manipulative plot dynamics that detract from the overall power of the story, but for the first time in a long while, it all seems to be in the service of moviemaking instead of ego. And in taking a backseat to his three superlative stars -- Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster -- Lee has come up with a spiffy genre flick that moves along with a well-oiled (if fairly predictable) precision; it's a fast-moving train that's never in danger of going off its track.

Inside Man starts off with Dalton Russell (Owen) speaking directly to the camera: "Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself," and with Owen's immediately authoritarian presence, they're words you adhere to through the entire movie. Russell proceeds to inform the audience that he's come up with the perfect bank robbery, but of course, nothing is what it seems. Taking possession of a Wall Street bank an its various employees and patrons, Russell and his three counterparts seal up the building with a tight precision that rivals the shenanigans of Ocean's 11. Soon enough, Detective Keith Frazier (Washington) is dispatched to oversee the robbery-hostage crisis, and it soon becomes apparent to Frazier that his adversary, while very serious and possibly very deadly, isn't too urgent in his demands. This isn't a sweaty, panicked robbery -- it's a cool cat-and-mouse game, though with Frazier slowly adapting to Russell's game-playing, it becomes cat-and-smarter-cat. And then suddenly there's a third cat in the game: the regal, ice-queen Madeline White (Foster), a mysterious mover and shaker of some kind enlisted by the bank's president (Christopher Plummer). Madeline is so powerful she basically has the mayor available at her beck and call, and looks like she could stomp on him with her lethal high heels and make him beg for more. And she's been given carte blanche to "assist" in the impending crisis.

As Russell posits in his opening monologue on the who, what, and where of Inside Man, the most important aspect of this movie isn't necessarily the why but the how. Everyone has motives, and it's how they choose to employ them that becomes the meat of the drama. Russell's heist becomes fairly transparent to the aware viewer -- you can tell what he's after from a few keenly placed details -- but it's the way he enacts it that keeps you interested. Frazier's job is fairly perfunctory, but watching him go about it smoothly as he maneuvers through potential mine fields becomes the heart of Washington's performance. And the lethal Madeline is a woman of mystery if ever there was one, but Foster's almost venomous presence is seductive as well as frightening -- taking a few key points from Anthony Hopkins, Foster inhabits a character so evil you can't help but be drawn to her even as you want to run screaming from her potential for violence. Lee cannily focuses on his three leads while still adhering to the twists and turns of Gerwitz's screenplay, and despite a large cast of hostages and cohorts, including Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor on the police side of things, focuses solely on his key players, and the central hook of Inside Man becomes how they all use the heist to their advantage. And so does Lee, because for the first time in a long while, he takes a good opportunity and makes something great and memorable out of it. Let's hope he keeps at it for a good long while.