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Inside Man is about moral bankruptcy, and about a series of characters who come to make last withdrawals on their failing accounts. Because all this takes place in a bank, it could be considered a comedy.

The Spike Lee "joint" skips ambiguous urban settings (Brooklyn/Crooklyn) and plays out in the arched lobby of an uptown Manhattan bank, where the vaults are lined with cash and the safety deposit boxes are filled with secrets. Inside Box 392 hides a skeleton: 60-year-old documentation that proves a wealthy old man made his millions (maybe billions) in Nazi Germany, atop the bodies of Holocaust victims.

We learn this revelation after armed gunmen have stormed the bank, taken hostages and made a spectacle of the police, one of whom is Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), who is about as nonchalant as cops get at hostage situations -- his first order on the scene is at the diner counter.

Meanwhile, inside the bank, the suave heist leader, Dalton Russell (a terrific Clive Owen), has concocted a brilliant plan with a fool-proof ploy: the hostages are dressed like the robbers in black coveralls and hoods. The police can't open fire because they can't see who they're shooting at, nor are they justified in opening fire because none of the hostages have been killed or hurt.

All of this really annoys Frazier, who figures the heist out beyond his own dumb luck. "You're too smart to be a cop," Dalton tells him at the front window of the bank. Frazier's reply: "You've seen Dog Day Afternoon; you know how this ends."

Inside Man is about secrets and the lengths people go to keep them hidden. Considering the stakes, every character's motives can be questioned, but who wants what and for how much is never really revealed. By the time the robbers have hatched their escape, as the rich old man is anticipating his swastika-embossed documents, we are left with several possible conclusions: the robbery was a cover for something bigger, the robbers formed an alliance with an independent information broker (Jodie Foster), the robbers' mission was to steal giant diamonds, or to simply steal the bank's money. The ending is open to interpretation, but most viewers will feel unfulfilled -- after such an energetic delivery, the payoff should pack a punch.

And don't think because Inside Man is a bank heist with a mostly white cast that Lee has stepped away from his race-conscious storytelling: he examines a Sikh man mistaken as an Arab, an Italian cop prone to racial slurs, an Albanian diva and a black youth playing video games that glorify violence and racial hatred. It's not Lee's most pointed examination on race, but it's probably his most curious assessment of greed.

If there is any reason to see Inside Man, it's for Washington, who underplays his role so much that the character's name should have been Denzel. That kind of performance seems natural for the content, especially when paired with Foster, who overacts. Washington is one of those actors who benefits greatly from his likeable personality. And Clive Owen ... he would have made a great Bond.

Inside Man isn't an exceptional film, but it is intriguing.