An oddity that flirts with wasting a superb team of actors, “Inside Man” mashes up a Hannibal-Lecter jail inmate with a fraught clock-ticking thriller about a domestic drama gone awry, adding the whimsical complication that the two tales occur in locations separated by an ocean. David Tennant is, as ever, convincing as a vicar in a quiet English village, whose act of compassion leads to a woman bloodied and imprisoned in his cellar. The real star, however, is Stanley Tucci, who plays a Death Row murderer in Texas, with a sideline in solving crimes, Sherlock Holmes style. Tucci’s portrayal of a gently spoken, precise, super-intelligent monster is superb; every one of his scenes is a delight. When a British reporter arrives to interview him, a thin nexus is formed between the two locales and stories. Inside Man is one of those thrillers that delights in plot twists and weird but pleasurable connections, and over its four episodes, on several occasions I shook my head in disbelief. But the sheer imaginativeness of the final episode, with several splendid plot gyrations, eventually overcame those reservations, and I commend the movie to you as lightweight but satisfying thriller fare.
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