Last movie review for the year 2011! Managed to squeeze one more in.
Tower Heist is an enjoyable romp stuffed with quality stars. The one mistake you might make going into this movie is thinking it's going to be a comedy. Don't worry if you did think that, because I did too, and this view is definitely encouraged by the fact that the two leads are Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy. However, this is really not a comedy. It's more of a slightly funny action/crime caper. Like Ocean's 11 but less suave.
Before I outline the plot, the one thing you do need to know is that Eddie Murphy is back. And it feels so good to have him back that I felt the urge to share that comment with Ben out loud twice during the movie. There wasn't enough of him in this movie, but he's still back, big time. No fat suits, cross dressing or family oriented jokes and pratfalls. In this he was all fast talkin' jive and attitude as the petty criminal, Slide, who is enlisted to help the gang pull off the heist. So if you love Eddie Murphy's old stuff better than his new stuff, this movie will fill you with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Ben Stiller plays the main character Josh Kovacs, who is the building manager at an exclusive apartment building in New York. He does a great job leading this team and knows all the residents very well. Life is great. Until one day he spots wealthy resident and financial guru Mr Shaw being kidnapped. In a very inplausible scene he gives chase to the speeding van, only to be clotheslined by FBI agent Tea Leoni who is trying to stop Mr Shaw from escaping from being arrested for fraud. As Josh slowly becomes disillusioned with Shaw (played by Alan Alda who I couldn't stop thinking of as Hawkeye from MASH and makes a rather cuddly and non-threatening villain) he realises that the pension fund of all the staff at "The Tower" was invested with Shaw and is likely all gone, never to be clawed back thanks to Mr Shaw's powerful connections and a lack of evidence.
This for me was one of the strong parts of the movie, as you see Josh become disillusioned and then angry (after the attempted suicide of a staff member who was due to retire but now can't) and then angrier still when it seems that justice is going to elude the staff. As the one who asked Shaw to manage the staff pension fund, Josh takes a lot of personal responsibility for what happened. Making it much more believable that he would plan a heist to break into Shaw's closely guarded apartment and try to locate the $20 million spare change that the FBI loosely speculate Shaw must have hidden away. You know, it seems to me that these days the idea of personal responsibility is really falling by the wayside (everything is always someone else's fault, blame them, sue them) which I think is wrong, and it was totally refreshing to me to see a movie based around personal responsibility and making amends, no matter how far-fetched the scenario.
Josh puts together his team of trusted souls including Matthew Broderick as a former resident fallen on hard times, Casey Affleck as Josh's brother-in-law who in hard times with a baby on the way and losing his concierge position, and Michael Pena as Enrique the new elevator boy, plus Gabourey Sidibe (the girl nominated for an Oscar last year for Precious) as the Jamaican maid. Most of the funny scenes in the movie centre around the team's "training" and preparation for the heist with Slide as their mentor.
When it finally comes, the heist itself is surprisingly tense and a really good extended action sequence. At one stage there I was genuinely nervous for the actors even though in my mind I knew it was all special effects and perfectly safe. Again there are gaps in the logic and continuity which the director chooses to simply skip over as there could be no logical explanation. You do have to kind of just 'go with it'. But by this stage you'll either be into it or gone so you'll probably be able to forgive this.
Overall I think critics would call this "undemanding holiday fun". And I would mostly agree with this. I felt happy and entertained when I left and glad that nothing embarrassing happened to Ben Stiller unlike practically every other movie he's been in. It is only in writing this review that I've reflected on the deeper themes of the movie and realised that there actually were some fairly good points to be made about personal responsibility and morality. Like whether it is necessary to do wrong if it is justified. Oooh, that's not really my style but it is interesting and like I said I'm a fan of taking responsibility and righting your own mistakes. Or you could just ignore this and watch the great cast have some fun!
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