Tower Heist Review

[Westside Steve]

Tower Heist

Universal

PG 13 104 min

 

Sometimes in sports the favored team can fall a little short of predictions. On paper the outcome should have been a lock, but you know how it goes; on any given Sunday…

Anyway that’s the feeling I got watching TOWER HEIST.

Here we have four icons of comedy Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick and Ben Stiller with a good second tier cast in a comedy con flick with all the tools to make for a fun couple hours.

Don’t misunderstand, yes it was enjoyable, yet what with the cast and the storyline I kind of expected it to be great.

Let me open with one minor bitch; the title. Not that I have a great title in mind but TOWER HEIST just lacks any kind of pizazz at all, don’t you think? Oh well.

Josh (Stiller) is the affable and honest manager of a swanky NY hotel and Arthur Shaw its richest and most influential tenant.

The two have what seems to be a great relationship until it’s discovered that Shaw, much like the real life Bernie Madoff, has swindled billions of dollars from corporations all over the world but most importantly wiped out the life savings of Josh’s entire hotel staff.

Feeling understandably guilty for his misplaced trust Josh decides to sting Shaw for his hidden cash reserve. He’ll assemble a team from his good hearted staff members, a down on his luck Wall Street exec (Broderick) and one actual street criminal named “Slide.” (Murphy)

Not a bad premise. Shaw turns out to be a real A hole you do have empathy with the hard working staffers Stiller is charismatic and Murphy plays his patented over the top ghetto criminal bit. Oh and the love interest with the FBI agent (Tia Leone) is passable. She’s still hot.

As for the plot, well, it’s clever enough but for me it was the weak link. As I say this is a pretty good movie, just one that I think could have been really good with a few minor tweaks.

I won’t give anything away but of course there are standard plot devices common to just about every one of this type of flick. You’ll know what I mean if you go see it but there will be a betrayal and redemption of at least one character and there will be a point where the plan goes awry.

I thought that with a minor rewrite these elements could have been tightened up. I don’t mean they’d have had to bring in David Mamet but just add a little more logic and misdirection into that part.

Still it’s a good time even though I’d hoped for great.

BTW Murphy produced this and his pal Brett Ratner directed. Ratner was slated to also direct the upcoming Oscars with Murphy as host. It looks like that plan is falling through. Stay tuned.

B-

WSS

 

Email westsidesteve@aol.com