So, let me get this straight: Crimson Tide and Serenity have to negotiate the release of hostages that Croupier is keeping inside a bank owned by Star Trek VI, who's hiding something mysterious in the vault and hires Flightplan to retrieve it for him; meanwhile, Green Goblin and his SWAT team are just itching to storm the place before King Arthur has the last laugh.

I think that about sums it up.

It was a fun movie. I enjoyed it very much.

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Originally posted by joan hue:
If I hadn't known what the movie was about, I would have thought from the title song that the movie would be about Calypso dancing. I didn't get the relevancy of that particular piece.

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I assume it has to do with the Sikh character who gets it rough from the seemingly racist NYPD. But where did you get "Calypso" from? It sounds nothing like that. Watch 25th Hour, Blanchard's 9/11 theme for the opening credits really has nothing to do with the Edward Norton story-thread in the film, and so it could potentially be for any number of other films, just like The Inside Man. Bottom line: the main credits music was awesome and driving, and it's exactly what that sequence needed; it had me interested in it right off the bat simply because it was such an interesting choice of music.

Interesting developments on the OSTinfo Inside Man soundtrack page.

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Originally posted by joan hue:
Yeah, I did hear Goldsmith's music. It was effective. I got Calypso from the rhythms of the song, or I also visualized modern Africa. I was just the opposite of you, Sean. I found the song irritating because it was not relevant to the movie at all. The one East Indian character was in the movie for about 5 minutes, and I don't see how the song portrayed him. For me, music, whether underscore or song, should serve a purpose. Just my humble opinion.

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Interesting. I found the song cool because it reminded me of one of my favourite artists, Talvin Singh. Other than it being an awesome opening track, the only other parallel I could draw to the movie is the Sikh character, however remote that might be. I'm sure Spike Lee will discuss it on the eventual DVD commentary track. And it does serve the picture, since Terence Blanchard did have a hand in writing the cue, according the CD notes; I just recieved this one in the mail and it's an awesome listen.

It's probably just a matter of opinion, since we could take something like The New World and complain about the use of Wagner's opera music and argue about how it in no way pertains to American Indians and the first British colonists in North America; but that's ridiculous, because the music works great, no matter what lyrics or meaning it has behind it. I think for Inside Man it just drives the visuals, and that's a good enough reason for me.

I'm still confused how you envisioned Africa with the music, though. It's defnitely got the Bollywood feel to it, if anything.

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Originally posted by PeterK:
Songs, on the other hand, have lyrics that can (and more often than not) act as plot devices. The one used in Inside Man has very little obvious connection to the film's story.

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I haven't seen the offending film yet, but I reckon that songs with relevant lyrics can be way too on-the-nose. Better to use something where people wonder for days why it was used...

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Revising my earlier opinion... my girlfriend, whose musical taste is excellent, said she thought the opening credits of this one were way off in terms of their music.

Oh well...

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Originally posted by sean:

Yeah, oh well she's wrong.

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
I haven't seen it, but this is a woman whose never walked out of a movie in her life, and she walked out of this film about a quarter of the way through. So something about the film as a whole put her off.

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Unless it's Spike Lee's She Hate Me, than it's pretty insane your friend would walk out of something cool like Inside Man. It's a very-well made film; why don't you go find out for yourself? It's always the best bet, since even the best of friends can be wrong.