Inside – Film Review

A high-end art thief becomes trapped inside a luxury, high-tech penthouse in New York’s Times Square after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.

There’s a certain atmosphere that’s projected in Vasilis Katsoupis‘ Inside that will definitely make you feel quite claustrophobic even if you yourself don’t have claustrophobia in real life. It’s made even more interesting when you consider the fact that Willem Dafoe‘s character Nemo is stuck in a gigantic skyscraper-style building surrounded by a plethora of expensive art.

Essentially, Inside tests the viewer’s ability to see how patient they can be while… well… inside of this one particular building. Watching Dafoe’s character Nemo do everything in his power to attempt to get out of this place is simultaneously intense and somewhat amusing, as weird as that may sound.

It’s mainly because Nemo absolutely loves art and values it more than anything else in his life. So, this makes his being stuck inside this massive art-filled building even more interesting. It would be like a young boy being trapped inside of a candy store. They’ll probably love being around so much delicious candy but obviously hate the situation they’re in.

Sadly though, Inside isn’t always an entertaining movie. In fact, I’d say that I lost interest somewhere in the second act. Things weren’t getting into gear and the pacing was taking a major toll on me. There’s not a lot of “unique” things that happen in this movie. It’s basically just Dafoe freaking out for nearly two hours, so if that sounds like a blast to you, you should definitely check this one out.

But me personally – I wanted to get a bit more out of this. Don’t get me wrong, Dafoe is absolutely terrific in this role. It’s honestly nearly impossible for Dafoe to turn in a bad performance at this point in his career, and his work here as Nemo is absolutely no exception.

With that being said though, he’s easily the strongest part of this whole movie and without him in it, I have to say that it wouldn’t have been nearly as entertaining. This movie mostly just feels like it was conceptualized by someone for a long time but when it came to actually making it into a feature-length movie, they had a bit of a struggle.

It’s nowhere near one of the worst movies of the year thus far, but it’s also certainly not one of the best. It’s just sort of okay. If you’re looking to watch any movie called Inside, my personal recommendation is that you go ahead and watch the one directed by Bo Burnham.

Willem Dafoe is terrific in Inside; a genuinely claustrophobic psychological thriller that sadly suffers from a weak story and not enough of an emotional punch.