I had liked the trailers I saw of this film, it seemed like a good heist/mystery movie. Then I found out it was a “Spike Lee Joint.” There are few directors I like less than Spike Lee, so it worried me that he was behind this film, but apparently he's mostly gotten over himself, and is just trying to direct good films. This is a very good screenplay, a nice series of mysteries, solutions, and mysteries on top of those, plus clever twists, interesting characters, and Lee manages to bring it all together without too much of his usual crap.
That's not to say it's not there. There's a Sikh character, a hostage, and when the cops see him they say “oh shit, he's an Arab!” Then he spends a long time explaining he's a Sikh. Then there's shots where the villain is in his office with pictures of him posing with George HW Bush, and Margaret Thatcher. There's scenes of Jews acting Jewy... Generally the Manhattan centric stuff that Lee seems to think the entire world revolves around.
But, this is all incredibly minor, only noteworthy as one searches for Lee's fingerprints on things. For the most part, he stays out of the way, and lets the screenplay do the work, which it does admirably. It's hard to comment too much without spoiling the plot, but suffice to say got some nice twists and surprises, and is generally a very believable film (Jodie Foster's character being the exception).