Canada’s most notorious bank robber contemplates time from inside his prison cell at a federal penitentiary.

Films like The Dark Knight, Point Break, and Heat‍ ‍trace narrative influences to Canada’s real-life “Stopwatch Gang”, a nickname given by the FBI to the 1970s-era bank robbers. Gang member Stephen Reid wore an oversized stopwatch around his neck to time their transnational heists, often committed while wearing Halloween masks. 

Reid’s life of crime was catalyzed early when he was sexually groomed as a young child and later addicted to drugs by age 13. Inside Time finds a middle-aged Reid in a correctional facility, serving the last of three major prison sentences accrued over his lifetime. This short documentary's simple and elegant cinematography serves as an apt metaphor for a deeply contemplative period in Reid’s life.

Directed by Jason Young and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) © 2007.

Jay Ferguson served as the film's cinematographer and won the Canadian Society of Cinematographers 2008 Award for Best Cinematographer: Documentary.