Latest News

13 / 05 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the fifth F1 race at Barcelona are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Monaco in two weeks on 27th May - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 25th.

30 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Argentina are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Greece and starts on 25th May. Cutoff for edits is midnight GMT on Thursday 24th May.

23 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Jari-Matti Latvala has been injured, so he is being replaced by Dani Sordo for Rally Argentina. If you have Latvala on your team, you'll automatically score for Sordo instead. Cutoff for edits for this weekend's rally is midnight GMT on Thursday 26th April.

22 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the fourth F1 race at Bahrain are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Barcelona in three weeks on 13th May - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 11th.

15 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1: Now we have a few races under our belt, the weightings have been changed to reflect the early season performances - see the the league page to see what changed.

15 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the third F1 race at China are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is (probably) Bahrain next weekend on 22nd April - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 20th.

02 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: The results have been updated to reflect Mikko Hirvonen's exclusion from Rally Portugal.

01 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Portugal are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Argentina and starts on 27th April. Cutoff for edits is midnight GMT on Thursday 26th April.

28 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Last call to pick a WRC Academy driver! Teams will be locked from midnight GMT on Thursday night - if you haven't picked one by then, you'll get Christopher Duplessis by default.

25 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the second F1 race at Malaysia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is China in 3 weeks on 15th April - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 13th.

18 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: The results from the first F1 race at Australia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Malaysia this coming weekend - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT Friday.

15 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: LAST DAY! Teams entered after midnight GMT tonight won't count for Melbourne - this is your last chance!

13 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Mexico are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Portugal and starts on 29th March. Remember to pick your Academy driver before then! Anyone who doesn't pick an Academy driver will by default get the first guy on the list - Christopher Duplessis.

05 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1: It's here! The 2012 Fantasy F1 championship is open for entries! Read the rules or dive straight in and Pick your team. You can change your mind as often as you like until midnight GMT on Thursday 15th March when teams will be frozen for the first race.

23 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: The Mexico entry list has arrived and is available on the rally page.

14 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Due to Mini's recent hoo-ha, if you have Mini as your WRC team, you will score for the Mini Portugal team instead (currently Araujo/Nobre) from Mexico onwards.

13 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Teams are open for editing again, though the entry list for Mexico isn't yet available.

12 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from Rally Sweden are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Mexico and starts on 8th March. Teams will reopen for editing on Monday.

23 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Teams are now open for editing again. Ogier and Mikkelsen are entered into Sweden in S2000 cars, but they're not eligible for the SWRC championship. You can choose them as WRC drivers for Sweden if you want.

22 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Results from the Monte are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The second rally is in Sweden and starts on 9th Feb. Teams will be frozen at midnight GMT on the night of Thursday 9th Feb.

18 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: Rally teams are now frozen for the Monte. You can still pick a team and it will start scoring from Sweden on 9th Feb.

11 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally: The 2012 Fantasy Rally season is now open for entries! Read the rules or dive straight in and pick a team. You can change your team as often as you like so you may as well create one now in case you forget later. Cutoff for the first race in Monte Carlo is midnight GMT on the night of TUESDAY 17th January.

27 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy F1: The results from the final F1 race at Brazil are in and the championship has been decided! Check the results or see how your team did. First race of 2012 is Australia on 18th March. Entries for the new season will open a week or two before that date.

14 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy Rally: Shock rally drama! Martin Semerad was excluded from the PWRC, so our results change too, which gives us a new champion! Check the results or see how your team did.

13 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally GB are in and the season is over! Check the results or see how your team did. The 2012 season will be open for entries in early 2012 in time for Monte Carlo on 17th January.

Inside Man

Cast: Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor. Directed by Spike Lee. Story: The perfect bank robbery. Running Time: 2hrs 9 minutes. UK Certificate 15.

Inside Man is a Spike Lee heist movie with an expensive cast. Entertaining enough for a night out with the boys, but lacking any stand-out quality to keep it inside this man's memory.

I have to confess, I haven't seen a lot of Spike Lee's movies. Political and racial commentaries generally bore the pants off me, so I'm pleased to report that Inside Man is a pure and simple bank robbery flick. The plot is a good one - the premise is sound and you can see how it could work in real life, but the execution leaves a little to be desired - it's not difficult to work out what's coming in advance and some of the details could have been handled better. For example, everyone inside the bank is made to dress in the same outfits, which makes it difficult for the viewer to make connections with individuals. The plot requires us to recognise key people later on in the story, even though we've only seen them for a few seconds, and they're not memorable enough - so the viewer only makes the connection in the car on the way home. At least, that's what happened to me. But then I've always been crap at faces. Look out, too, for Christopher Plummer talking about the Nazis in the barber's scene - his voice says, "sixty years ago," while his lips say, "fifty." Oops!

Clive Owen (King Arthur, Closer) is an overrated actor in my book. Not that he isn't watchable, it's just that his cold stare isn't as captivating as he seems to think it is and his tuneless voice can grate after a while. In Inside Man, he's comprehensively outshone by Denzel Washington and Christopher Plummer, both giving their all to the rather erratic script (Owen's line, "I never repeat myself," for example, loses its efficacy the second time!) Jodie Foster, however, is disappointing - after so many intense starey roles (Contact, Panic Room, Flightplan), she tries something different - smug and arrogant - and completely overdoes it. The Miss Fixit character she plays requires a quiet confidence, exuding an aura of professionalism and charisma - but she plays it as an irritatingly smarmy hardballer, and it doesn't work at all. British interloper Chiwetel Ejiofor continues his run of impressive and diverse performances (Four Brothers, Serenity, Kinky Boots) as Denzel's police sidekick, while Willem Dafoe seems mightily out of place as a minor cop with very little part to play in the proceedings.

Inside Man is a solid attempt at a heist movie, with some nice cinematic techniques and a range of performances from inadvised to excellent. It will pass the evening and you won't feel duped by paying for it, but I defy you to remember its name this time next year - even though there's a clue in there to help you. Average.

I enjoyed this film: 3/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 4/5

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 2/5 - bank robberies are always interesting to adult males - but there's not much in the way of thrills here. One gratuitous use of the c word.

To enjoy this film you should: enjoy clever ideas.

Your comments

The comments printed here are not necessarily the views of Forwardcharm!

At first glance the film seems to be a standard heist and you settle down in your seat for some action and the inevitable stand off, however, the film develops quickly into a myriad of smaller plots and sub-plots (some with large holes where the story should go)

Lee has done a good job of spinning the story and it's a good film that's worth seeing, however there are a couple of things that should have mentioned

1) As an average person I did not see the ending and as such it filled in a few holes (no pun intended)
2) Given that Christopher Plummer (the Banker) amassed his fortune during the 1940s and that the film takes place in 2005, he looks very young for a 90 year old. He has to be that old to have had the necessary experience in the 40s to get that rich.

Mike G