STARRING
Ben Stiller as Josh Kovacs
Eddie Murphy as Slide
Casey Affleck as Charlie
Alan Alda as Arthur Shaw
Matthew Broderick as Mr Fitzhugh
Téa Leoni as Agent Denham
Gabourey Sidibe as Odessa
As the opening credits rolled on this movie, my eyes kept getting wider. This is a pretty big talent pool, and as we know large casts like this always do well!
... well, not if you're Movie 43. Or New Year's Eve. Still!
Tower Heist is the tale of a guy named Josh Kovacs. Ol' Josh is the building manager of The Tower, an upper-crust condominium in downtown New York. Josh's job is to know everything about everyone who lives in the tower and take care of them, because they're all absurdly rich. In Josh's employ is the hapless Charlie, the concierge, whose wife is eight months pregnant and is also Josh's sister. We're also introduced to Enrique Deveraux (Michael Peña), whose dream it is to move up from the BK (aka Burger King) to the Big Time in customer service. Josh's favourite tenant is the billionaire Arthur Shaw, and it seems his lips are permanently attached to Shaw's butt. Josh and Shaw play online chess, Josh picks up Shaw's dry cleaning, gets his mail... and Alan Alda uses his old Hawkeye Pierce charm to win Josh over.
... well, not if you're Movie 43. Or New Year's Eve. Still!
Tower Heist is the tale of a guy named Josh Kovacs. Ol' Josh is the building manager of The Tower, an upper-crust condominium in downtown New York. Josh's job is to know everything about everyone who lives in the tower and take care of them, because they're all absurdly rich. In Josh's employ is the hapless Charlie, the concierge, whose wife is eight months pregnant and is also Josh's sister. We're also introduced to Enrique Deveraux (Michael Peña), whose dream it is to move up from the BK (aka Burger King) to the Big Time in customer service. Josh's favourite tenant is the billionaire Arthur Shaw, and it seems his lips are permanently attached to Shaw's butt. Josh and Shaw play online chess, Josh picks up Shaw's dry cleaning, gets his mail... and Alan Alda uses his old Hawkeye Pierce charm to win Josh over.
Then Shaw is arrested for securities fraud. He's apparently penniless, living off the money he stole from The Tower's pension fund after Josh entrusted him with the portfolio. When the doorman tries to commit suicide over the loss of his pension, Josh loses his shit. He takes Charlie and Deveraux up to Shaw's apartment where he's under house arrest, yells at the man, and then proceeds to go all Jack Nicholson on an old Ferrari that used to belong to Steve McQueen. The building ownership (represented by Judd Hirsch) doesn't take too kindly to this and fires all three men.
Desperate, Josh tries to sell Shaw out to the FBI. He ends up having drinks with Agent Denham, who drunkenly tells him that there's twenty million dollars unaccounted for. It's simply gone. With his intimate knowledge of the building, Josh figures the money is being held in a wall that Shaw didn't remove during a major renovation project several years ago. He recruits Deveraux, Charlie, the recently-evicted Mr Fitzhugh, and his criminal neighbour Slide to try and rob Shaw.
I couldn't help but notice how Same-y this movie was. Ben Stiller plays a Ben Stiller character, all intense one minute and completely bungling the next. He's also very obviously wearing mascara in several scenes. Matthew Broderick plays a slightly more confident Leo Bloom, his character from The Producers. Casey Affleck plays an idiot, something he seems to play in every role (with the exception of Gone Baby Gone). Eddie Murphy is Token Black Criminal. Yawn.
Desperate, Josh tries to sell Shaw out to the FBI. He ends up having drinks with Agent Denham, who drunkenly tells him that there's twenty million dollars unaccounted for. It's simply gone. With his intimate knowledge of the building, Josh figures the money is being held in a wall that Shaw didn't remove during a major renovation project several years ago. He recruits Deveraux, Charlie, the recently-evicted Mr Fitzhugh, and his criminal neighbour Slide to try and rob Shaw.
I couldn't help but notice how Same-y this movie was. Ben Stiller plays a Ben Stiller character, all intense one minute and completely bungling the next. He's also very obviously wearing mascara in several scenes. Matthew Broderick plays a slightly more confident Leo Bloom, his character from The Producers. Casey Affleck plays an idiot, something he seems to play in every role (with the exception of Gone Baby Gone). Eddie Murphy is Token Black Criminal. Yawn.
Some of the more surprising laughs came from Gabourey Sidibe's character, Odessa. I haven't seen Precious, so I wasn't familiar with her acting chops before this one. It felt like she was holding back for most of the movie. Alan Alda plays Shaw as a smarmy asshole, which is refreshing for me as I know him best as the aforementioned Hawkeye. I will say this for Stiller, though: despite being a Ben Stiller character, I didn't spend the entire movie wanting to punch him like I usually do. I tell you, if you want to make sure I don't see a movie, put Stiller with Nicolas Cage. *shudder*
Despite some interesting twists (and a few shudder moments during the climax... if you have vertigo, prepare to cover your face when you see Deveraux on the roof), this movie is, as I said earlier, Same-y. It's reasonably predictable, and the laughs aren't as frequent as I'd like. Eddie Murphy is completely wasted here, but since he hasn't had a quality movie where he isn't a donkey in about 15 years, it's not like he's got top-drawer scripts being sent his way. Again, much like Pacific Rim, I felt they could have done so much more with the material they had here. There are plot points that feel like they were thrown in because it was convenient for the scriptwriters. I would have liked a bit more time exploring Slide and Odessa's relationship, because it's one of the few times Murphy's character isn't channeling Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. A few loose ends, like the sparks between Josh and Denham, go nowhere and are unresolved by the movie's end. Hasty editing? Possibly. Of course, the answer to my gripes is probably summed up in two words: Brett Ratner. The director. Hey, there's Rush Hour again!
FINAL REVIEW
Tower Heist
2.5 snowflakes out of 5
TL;DR - An unoffensive movie. You could do worse than watch it, but it'll leave you wanting more.
Despite some interesting twists (and a few shudder moments during the climax... if you have vertigo, prepare to cover your face when you see Deveraux on the roof), this movie is, as I said earlier, Same-y. It's reasonably predictable, and the laughs aren't as frequent as I'd like. Eddie Murphy is completely wasted here, but since he hasn't had a quality movie where he isn't a donkey in about 15 years, it's not like he's got top-drawer scripts being sent his way. Again, much like Pacific Rim, I felt they could have done so much more with the material they had here. There are plot points that feel like they were thrown in because it was convenient for the scriptwriters. I would have liked a bit more time exploring Slide and Odessa's relationship, because it's one of the few times Murphy's character isn't channeling Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. A few loose ends, like the sparks between Josh and Denham, go nowhere and are unresolved by the movie's end. Hasty editing? Possibly. Of course, the answer to my gripes is probably summed up in two words: Brett Ratner. The director. Hey, there's Rush Hour again!
FINAL REVIEW
Tower Heist
2.5 snowflakes out of 5
TL;DR - An unoffensive movie. You could do worse than watch it, but it'll leave you wanting more.
edit: Apparently, I forgot Eddie Murphy's role in Dream Girls when I was slagging him in this post. My bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment