Willem Dafoe in ‘Inside’: Being Trapped in a Penthouse Has Never Been This Unfun
Inside affords the opportunity to spend 105 minutes in the sustained company of Willem Dafoe as he slowly disintegrates under the strain of physical confinement and psychological torment—a prospect that sounds a lot better than it turns out to be. The feature debut of Greek filmmaker Vasilis Katsoupis, which hit theaters Mar. 17, is another in a long line of films in which a character is trapped in a single location (think Ryan Reynolds in a coffin in Buried, or Tom Hanks on a deserted island in Cast Away), and as a showcase for the inimitable Dafoe it has its minor freaky-deaky pleasures. Ultimately, though, it goes nowhere—literally and figuratively.
In a nocturnal New York City that glitters like a diamond and yet appears far out of reach, Nemo (Dafoe) is dropped by helicopter onto the patio of a luxury high-rise penthouse. Courtesy of an accomplice dubbed “Number Three” with whom he communicates by walkie-talkie, Nemo gains access to the residence, which is owned by a wealthy someone-or-other and whose spaces are decorated with fabulously inventive and valuable works of art (courtesy of curator Leonardo Bigazzi).
Nemo is here to steal a particular selection of those pieces, but his plans are immediately complicated by the discovery that a sought-after self-portrait is not in its expected location. Even more problematic is a high-tech security system that malfunctions when Nemo attempts to exit with his loot, thereby triggering a lockdown that confines him in the swanky locale.