This 70s-set based-on-a-truish-story crime drama about an undercover cop embedded with mobsters was originally released in the US as The Gemini Lounge; for some reason it’s been retitled Inside Man for the UK, but on no account should it be confused with either the excellent Spike Lee-directed heist movie from 2006 or the recent Netflix show starring David Tennant. And while it merely borrows the title of better made movies, there’s something almost superfan-stalkerish about this film’s relationship to Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas. It’s not a remake in any way and revolves around totally different characters and a different plot, but it somehow does a cheap karaoke version of GoodFellas’ rhythms, phrasing, look and general vibe.
This runs through every element here, from the setting among tertiary-level mafiosi driving huge gas-guzzling 1970s cars and running rackets, to its use of freeze frames and a voiceover by Emile Hirsch as the narrator-protagonist; Hirsch’s vocal timbre tracks so closely to Ray Liotta’s in GoodFellas that it seems only a harmonic or two away. The big difference, apart from the fact that director and supporting actor Danny A Abeckaser is no Scorsese, is that the film has been made on a speck of a budget and it all seems to unfold on two or three sets, and clearly there was no money for even a Bay City Rollers song, let alone a Rolling Stones number, on the soundtrack. Moreover, the dialogue has none of the musicality or swagger of GoodFellas or its flair for detail and wit.
