Inside Man: inserting social commentary on video games into film

Spike Lee's Inside Man got a bit of attention in the gaming community earlier this year for a scene that showed a computer generated sequence made to look like a violent video game. I just saw the DVD on the weekend, and I have to admit I'm a bit suprised at the clumsily inserted social commentary. I could understand using the wounds of the World Trade Centre as a point of reflection in 25th Hour, but Inside Man's approach to criticizing violent video games simply felt gratuitous, from multiple viewpoints. It seems that the bigger Lee's budget, the lesser his tact.

The film's focus is on a high-profile bank robbery where a number of hostages are taken, including a preteen African-American boy who was with his father at the bank. In one scene, the captives are asked to hand over all phones and electronic devices by the leader of the group robbing the bank (played by Clive Owen). The boy happened to be playing a Sony Playstation Portable®, and is ready to give it up. In what is supposed to be an act of kindness, showing our antagonist may be human after all, Owen tells the boy to "Keep it". I wouldn't have been so hasty if I was him - those PSP®s can watch movies and play music, too! But that was just the set-up for what follows.

Later on, the boy is seen playing his Sony Playstation Portable® in the bank's vault. Owen's character sits down to talk with him, and asks to try out what the kid is playing. We are then shown a scene that is clearly modelled after Rockstar's own Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The player is shown as a gangsta dressed in West coast garb cruising in his convertible, who proceeds to blast someone at the side of the road in typical gangland fashion. The player gets out of the car to pump a few more bullets into his victim, blood spattering the wall and pavement. The words "Kill Dat Nigga!" flash on the screen, and the player places an armed hand grenade in the mouth of the other character, showering the scene with gore in some kind of finishing move. The entire scene lasted 30 seconds. I have to admit I was a bit shocked.

The obvious criticism about this situation is that Owen's character immediately knows how to play, yet is asking about the game. It hints at how forced this commentary feels in the context of the film. Some dialogue loosely paraphrased from the scene:

Robber: "What's the point of this game?"
Boy: "Rob people. Kill people."
Robber: "And you like this?"
Boy: "Sure. Just like my man Fitty says, 'Get rich, or die tryin'. That's what you're doing, isn't it?"

Clever kid. In another startling display of social conscience at the end of this exchange, Owen's character confiscates the game and says that he wants to talk to his father about allowing the boy to play it. This scene can be interpreted in a few ways. First, the commentary on video game violence. Yes it was a gratuitous display, but with mainstream film you are dealing with the uneducated. You have to be hyperbolic when making a point like this, because people still do not get it. The majority of parents do not understand that video game violence exists or is that accessible, or feel that it is "harmless" to impressionable young kids. I still see parents buying San Andreas for kids clearly too young to play it. It's easier to give them what they want rather than explain why they can't have it (yet).

Secondly, a complete stranger has taken it upon himself to determine what is appropriate for the boy, and to talk to his father about it. This is reflective of what the vocal minority of parents against violent video games are asking of the U.S. government in their creation of legislation to regulate video games.

Lastly, Lee is commenting on the "Black-on-Black" gang violence that is so prevalent in major urban centres, and how it has been glamorized in games, films and movies. I'm sure the reference to 50 Cent was intentional - his own game Bulletproof was released late last year. In the aftermath of the robbery, the boy and his father are questioned by Denzel Washington's character, the detective leading the case. The boy boasts that he was never scared during the whole ordeal, even after being exposed to extreme violence first-hand, hinting at the desensitization of youth exposed to this kind of lifestyle.

An article in the Hollywood Reporter is a good summary of how the game sequence was created for the film, though it incorrectly labels it as "machinima". The way I understand it, Machinima are movies created using existing games and working within the confines of their control schemes; otherwise, it's just computer generated animation. Spike Lee apparently wanted this "game" to be as graphically violent as possible - in fact, the "Kill Dat Nigga!" screen wasn't added until the game had been inserted into the film, as he wanted to add some additional "weight" to the sequence. I think the most important part of this exercise is the delivery: he used the medium itself to send the message. This isn't the first time Lee has used to convey his opinions about video games and gangsta culture, either: Clockers showed a young boy enamored with the drug dealing scene in his housing project playing the ficticious 3D action game "Gangsta", which allowed him to shoot people while on a bike.

Nevertheless, there is a time and a place for this kind of activism. How about contacting the ESRB next time, Spike? I'm sure you could dream up some killer commercials about the rating system that governs games that are inappropriate for minors. In the framework of this film it was an unnecessary product placement. And when I say product placement, I mean the PSP® (who really wants a PSP these days, anyway?) and the agenda of anti-video game activists. While it didn't take away from the rest of the film, the method of relaying the message was far too overwrought to be taken seriously.