![]() ![]() Murphy, in his first role since 2009, is in full Eddie Murphy mode, with comic riffs and astonished double takes. Fitzhugh (Broderick), who is jobless, broke, has lost his family and being evicted from the building, and characters played by Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, Gabourey Sidibe (her second film since her Oscar nomination) as a Jamaican whose father would crack safes, and - well, Kovacs decides they need someone more familiar with crime and enlists Slide ( Eddie Murphy), a loud-talking dude from the street in his neighborhood. Obviously, this requires stealing the car from the penthouse, where there's no door or elevator that can handle it. They're looking for a wall safe, but then discover Shaw's Ferrari is solid gold: $65 million is hidden in plain sight. Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy lead an all-star cast in Tower Heist, a comedy caper about working stiffs who seek revenge on the Wall Street swindler who stiffed them. Enraged, Kovacs recruits a team to break into the apartment. From director Brett Ratner, Tower Heist also stars Matthew Broderick, Téa Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe, Casey Affleck, and Alan Alda. So dear old Lester and all the others are penniless. The FBI is on the job because Shaw has been running a Ponzi scheme, and among his loot are the pension plan and investments of the tower's employees. It was taken apart piece by piece, he explains to FBI agent Claire Denham ( Tea Leoni), and assembled there. His most prized possession is a bright red 1953 Ferrari, once owned by Steve McQueen. ![]() The penthouse is owned by Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), a financial wheeler-dealer, whose walls display priceless modern art. His team works flawlessly, beginning with the beloved doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson). The story: Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) is the perfectionist building manager at the most luxurious condo skyscraper in New York, which providentially is on Columbus Circle, in the exact footprint of Trump Tower. It's funny in an innocent screwball kind of way. There is also the novelty that here is a comedy that doesn't go heavy on the excremental, the masturbatory and symphonies of four-letter words. ![]() It's the kind of story where the executives at a pitch meeting feel they're being bludgeoned over the head with box-office dollars. The movie is broad and clumsy, and the dialogue cannot be described as witty, but a kind of grandeur creeps into the screenplay by Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson. When Alda's character is revealed to be running a Ponzi scheme that frittered away the pensions of the building's blue-collar employees, Stiller's building manager character rounds up a posse- including Gabourey Sidibe's Jamaican maid, and two dopes played by Casey Affleck and Michael Pena- to break into Alda's apartment and steal what they assume is a huge trove of cash.Quibble, quibble. The Tower is home to average Wall Street guys like Matthew Broderick's character as well as kingpins like Alan Alda's, living in a penthouse apartment with a rooftop pool, a car that once belonged to Steve McQueen, and all the rich guy entitlement you could ask for. There will be funny scenes or exciting scenes, or especially a moment when Eddie Murphy seems awake onscreen for the first time in years, but they all eventually float back into a movie that's a steady stream of mediocrity, adamant in its refusal to stand up and make something of itself.Įven the tower at the center of the movie is unremarkable, called simply "The Tower" and shot at a black monolith building that looms over Columbus Circle with its utter blandness (in real life it is, of course, owned by Donald Trump). Director Brett Ratner is famous for these kinds of movies, and while he does nothing to get in the way of the things that Tower Heist does well, he doesn't enhance them either. ![]() It's a movie without passion or any of the trick-door complications of the heist genre, just an opportunity to throw some stars, jokes and big visual set pieces into a high-rise building and entertain the masses. Unless by "bad" of course you mean bad movies, which Tower Heist is just innocuous enough to avoid becoming. ![]()
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