Review: Tower Heist

When luxury apartment building manager Ben Stiller learns that he has inadvertently aided unscrupulous billionaire Alan Alda (a tenant whom he also plays online chess with) in ripping off not only himself but all the other employees of their superannuation. All the money is gone. Stiller comes up with a solution, however: Enlist the services of the low-rent crim from his neighbourhood (Eddie Murphy), find Alda’s hidden safe and break into it, and get their damn money back. He even manages to rope in a few of his employees including concierge Casey Affleck, newly hired elevator operator Michael Pena, and horny Jamaican maid Gabourey Sidibe, who comes from a family of locksmiths. Matthew Broderick plays a bankrupt Wall Street guy who has just had to vacate his apartment, and who is a bit of a maths whiz (He’s essentially the ‘brainy one’ of the mostly amateur would-be thieves). Tea Leoni provides complications as the determined FBI agent hoping to bring Alda to justice, and ends up dating Stiller to boot. Judd Hirsch plays the building owner.

I like a good caper as much as the next person, and that holds true of comedies too. Unfortunately, this 2011 all-star effort from director Brett Ratner (The “Rush Hour” series and the substantially better “Red Dragon” and “X Men: The Last Stand”) is a pretty average heist movie and an even lesser comedy. Hell, the mopey opening twenty minutes contained no laughs at all, making me wonder whether it was meant to be a comedy or not. A film like “Sneakers” proved you could effectively balance laughs and caper plotting, but this one just doesn’t get it right. I get that the film was trying to be topical being made at the time of the GFC and Bernie Madoff, but it’s only in the increasingly depressed character played by Matthew Broderick that the film even manages to come close to making the idea work.

The laughs do eventually come, but only a few in number, only mild, and mostly attributed to Michael Pena. In a film featuring Ben Stiller, Alan Alda, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, and Tea Leoni, that’s quite shocking. This movie should’ve been a lot better and those actors just mentioned should’ve been a lot funnier. Unfortunately, Ratner and screenwriters Ted Griffin (“Ocean’s Eleven”, “Matchstick Men”) and Jeff Nathanson (“Rush Hour 2”, “Catch Me If You Can”) seem to have no idea what they are doing. Actually, Griffin is clearly doing another “Ocean’s Eleven”, only even less funny, less charming, and more wasteful of talent than that overrate flick (either version, actually).

The pacing and tone are way off early in the picture (It should’ve been edited a lot tighter), and a lot of it is just plain sloppy, especially the denouement. The Eddie Murphy character in particular struggles for any real presence in the plot at all. He is clunkily (and barely) introduced, forgotten about for a while, and then largely forgotten about at the end too. The relationship between Murphy and Stiller’s character is especially poorly done to the point where we only find out about an hour into the film they actually grew up together in the same neighbourhood. Murphy’s character, in fact seems to have forgotten about this connection when Stiller finally brings it up. We’re never given an explanation as to why Murphy takes so long to remember the guy. The role is also a prime example of the film’s rather unfortunate undercurrent of racism, or at least racial stereotyping. Ratner and/or the writers might’ve done it unintentionally, but there’s something really wrong to me with the idea of the film’s two prominent black people being the most experienced criminals of the bunch (Or in Sidibe’s case, her father’s background as a locksmith gives her safecracking cred). I’m not suggesting anyone involved in making the film is racist of course, but that doesn’t mean racial stereotyping isn’t on show here. Even Michael Pena is essentially playing a servile role.

The cast looks like a winner on paper, but with the material at hand, there’s not a whole helluva lot they can do. Affleck looks bored (he’s already been in this film three times before when it starred George Clooney and Brad Pitt), and Stiller (normally good value) seems unsure whether he’s in a comedy or straight heist film, for instance. Eddie Murphy is even worse, I’m afraid. In fact, he was funnier (and edgier) promoting the film on “Jimmy Fallon”, whilst here he’s basically a non-animated Donkey from “Shrek”, falling back on tired, rapid-fire delivery, little of it amusing and most of it very, very safe (I’m pretty sure he swore more on “Jimmy Fallon”). His rant about lesbians having the best tits, however, is one of the film’s two best laughs. The other genuine laugh (as well as a few other chortles) comes from Michael Pena, who is genuinely amusing and stoner-ish here. The funniest moment in the film belongs to him, as he manages to turn a discussion about “The Doberman Gang” and “The Boys From Brazil” into how Hilary Swank freaked him out in “Boys Don’t Cry” (The funniest thing is, I think he’s actually referring to “The Crying Game”, which Swank wasn’t in). You just have to see it for yourself. Alan Alda is perfect as the film’s sleazy, amoral villain, though the role is pretty much of a non-comedic one. Who knew such a likeable actor could be so convincingly cold-blooded? I still believe that Gabourey Sidibe will have limited success in Hollywood, and in this film she’s burdened by having a rather thick (but on and off) Jamaican accent to go with her already mumbly delivery of dialogue. It’s not an amusing role, and Sidibe simply lacks charisma if you ask me. Her face, for instance, has seemingly little mobility or room for expression. Matthew Broderick is perfectly fine, but wasted for the most part (And when did he get grey hair? That’s just depressing). The “Ferris Bueller” references are fun to spot, though. Although she looks rather haggard and gets less to do the longer the film goes on (her relationship with Stiller is poorly resolved), I have to admit that this is the first time since “The Naked Truth” where I’ve liked Tea Leoni. She’s always had a gift for silly comedy, and her drunk act is charming and amusing.

This film genuinely disappointed me. The cast looks amazing on paper, but what can you do when the script is seriously sloppy, and the editor seems to know nothing about pacing? This should’ve been so much better. Watch a real heist movie instead, hell even Ratner’s own “After the Sunset” is a bit better than this.

Rating: C