A turbaned Sikh hostage who has been released complains about always being detained at security checkpoints these days, and the detective played by Mr. Washington says, "Bet you can get a cab, though."

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The grand ballroom at the Pierre Hotel in New York is an unlikely place to hear people talk about going "clubbin'," particularly when they're a bunch of Wall Street types wearing expensive suits.

But that was the hot topic of conversation at the 18th annual private-equity conference sponsored by the trade magazine Buyouts in early March -- a gathering that some describe as "the Davos of private equity."

In this context, "clubbin'" referred to a particular kind of leveraged buyout, in which rival firms team up to take large public companies private. The transactions typically involve obscene sums of money and grab big headlines, such as last year's $15-billion leveraged buyout of Hertz rental cars by Clayton Dubilier & Rice, the Carlyle Group, and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity.

And although "clubbin'" is a relatively new phenomenon, the consensus at the conference was that this party is just getting started.

"It's definitely here to stay," said panelist Alan Holt, Carlyle's co-head of U.S. buyouts.

Going clubbin'

“Inside Man” needs to be seen. The more it sags as a thriller, the more it jabs and jangles as a study of racial abrasion.

“Grand Illusion” offered the ennobling suggestion that national divisions were delusory, and that our common humanity can throw bridges across any social gulf. To which Lee would reply, Nice idea. Go tell it to the guy who just had his turban pulled off by the cops.

Inside Man | The New Yorker

Among the handsome leading men who suffer in HD, Swann said, is Brad Pitt.

"He's a really good example of somebody the Hollywood glamour machine decided would be a sex symbol," Swann said. "But when you see him in high definition, you see all these pockmarks in his cheeks and he looks like an entirely different person -- and you go, 'Wow, is that Brad Pitt?' "

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One of the bank's hostages is Vikram (the excellent Waris Ahluwalia), a young Sikh whom the robbers release early with a message tied around his neck. The NYPD officers on the scene assume he's Arab and that the message is a bomb. They rough him up, then swipe his turban. When Frazier and Mitchell interrogate him later in a booth at a diner, Vikram refuses to discuss the heist until his turban is returned, then condemns his harassment. When he's done, Washington says, "But I bet you can still get a cab." In this single moment, which is more vivid than almost all of "Crash," we see the sad modern hierarchy of American bigotry.

Inside Man Movie Review

Spike Lee evokes New York's grittier, edgier days -- and gives Jodie Foster her best role in years -- with this crisply made heist movie.

Inside Man | Salon