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.
Nevertheless, this isn’t an entirely unwatchable film. Hirsch, currently ubiquitous in low budget features these days, is on pretty good form as Bobby Belucci, an NYPD detective who gets busted down to a desk job after he attacks a man he stumbles on kissing his wife. With his career in tatters, Bobby goes one worse and beats up a guy in a public toilet – a crime that pays in the sense that it gives him an in with local drug dealer Chris (Jake Cannavale), who was himself in a fight with the beating victim. Recognising an opportunity to infiltrate the branch of the Gambino crime family to which Chris belongs, Bobby persuades his police chief (Bo Dietl) to give him support as he goes undercover and becomes part of their crew. Naturally, he gets in too deep and finds himself committing crimes as heinous as those he’s meant to stop.
Clearly enamoured with his cast, Abeckaser creates a showcase here for an assortment of fine character actors, all of them turning up their outer borough accents to max and enjoying themselves. Of necessity, it’s a very male-dominated story but Lucy Hale gets to make an impression as a bartender at the lounge everyone hangs out in who has a soft spot for Bobby. Still, in the end this feels a bit too much like a knockoff of a superior product, like something one of these guys would sell out of the boot of their car.
• Inside Man is released on 20 November on digital platforms.
