This 10/10 Crime Thriller Masterpiece Got an Unwanted Sequel With an Apple TV Sci-Fi Star

20 years since its release, Inside Man has endured as a signature crime film of its generation. Although this wildly entertaining Spike Lee idiosyncratic touch, alongside a sturdy and charismatic performance by its lead, Denzel Washington, has made the 2006 film feel special despite its familiarity.

We all know you love Inside Man, but what if we told you that, 13 years later, the same studio and production company, Universal and Imagine Entertainment, released a direct-to-video sequel with a brand-new cast and creative team? You wouldn’t believe us at first, but after some major convincing, you’ll be stunned to learn that Inside Man: Most Wanted exists, and that it stars Rhea Seehorn of Better Call Saul and Pluribus fame. Being a generic crime thriller that wastes a gifted actor in Seehorn, this misbegotten 2019 sequel was truly something no one asked for.

An ‘Inside Man’ Sequel Was in Development for Years

Because it was a hit for Universal, grossing a stellar $186 million worldwide in 2006, the studio set its eyes on an Inside Man sequel. Just mere months after its premiere, Imagine co-head Brian Grazer was negotiating a deal with Lee and writer Russell Gewirtz to reunite for another go-around. Early talks of a sequel planned to get the entire band back together, including Washington, Clive Owen as the mastermind behind the film’s bank robbery, Dalton Russell, and Jodie Foster as Madeleine White, the power broker involved as a “fixer” for the hostage negotiator. After a series of new scripts and delayed green lights, Lee announced that the sequel was shelved, hinting that funding was the death knell for the project.

You can only restrain movie studios from churning out a pointless sequel for so long. Years later, Inside Man: Most Wanted, a sequel released straight to digital platforms in 2019 by Universal’s home video division and Imagine Entertainment, arrived with little fanfare. Replacing Spike was M.J. Bassett, a staple of genre films and television, best known for Deathwatch and Silent Hill: Revelation, and the original cast is nowhere to be found. The film is rounded out by relative unknowns such as Aml Ameen, Roxanne McKee, and Urs Rechn — with one exception, of course. By 2019, Rhea Seehorn was widely celebrated for her performance as Kim Wexler in the Breaking Bad spin-off prequel, Better Call Saul. After being the surprise heart of the thematically rich and complex AMC legal/crime drama, Seehorn’s thankless presence in an obscure DTV sequel to a Spike Lee movie is confounding.

‘Inside Man: Most Wanted’ Wastes the Talent of ‘Pluribus’ Star Rhea Seehorn

Seehorn plays Dr. Brynn Stewart, the FBI hostage negotiator in a joint task force with the NYPD and its own negotiator, Remy Darbonne (Ameen). Five years after Dalton Russell and his team robbed the bank of Nazi collaborator, Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), a new crew, led by Ariella Barash (McKee), has arrived to rob New York’s Federal Reserve Bank. Without contributions by its predecessor’s principal creative artists, Inside Man: Most Wanted immediately felt cheap.

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“Say my name.”

The worst thing it could do is remind viewers of the previous installments, but that’s exactly what the movie does, both in its narrative and execution. We see a portrait of Keith Frazier (Washington) in the NYPD headquarters, and it’s revealed that the heist is directly tied to the first movie’s antagonist, Case. Stewart and Darbonne learn that Ariella has been coerced by Case’s son, Dietrich (Greg Kriek), into robbing the Federal Reserve to compensate for his father’s seized treasure. Regardless of its title, Most Wanted would’ve been far better served as a loose, no-frills B-movie and not a half-hearted legacy sequel without the endorphin rush of seeing Denzel Washington and Clive Owen face off once again.

The immersive emotional clarity provided by Seehorn in Pluribus in her award-winning performance as Carol Sturka, the cynical novelist trapped in a dystopian world, is completely missing in Inside Man: Most Wanted. While she’s proven to display captivating gravitas and poise as a morally conflicted lawyer and survivor of humanity, studios have misplaced her gifted traits by giving her generic law enforcement roles in Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Most Wanted. From its banal set pieces to its contrived character motivations, Inside Man: Most Wanted is better off forgotten. Luckily, most audiences have already completed that request. This will just be a confusing blip in Rhea Seehorn’s impressive career.