Review - Tower Heist

Tower Heist Steals Some Laughs

Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) is the manager of the luxurious Tower in New York.

The Tower is the place to be for some of the highest rollers in the city, and Josh knows how to treat them with the utmost respect and discretion. He demands the same type of attitude from his entire staff, understanding and catering to every need of the residents of the building.

When the FBI takes one of Josh’s tenants into custody, everything changes. Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) is this films Bernie Madoff. He has “invested” the money of a number of individuals and there is nothing to show for it. But there is a bigger problem at the tower, he also has all of the retirement accounts of all the employees there as Josh had invested it with him.

Now, it’s personal, especially after reality hits the employees that have lost everything. Josh can’t look beyond these indiscretions any longer. After confronting Shaw, he finds himself jobless. He knows that if it weren’t for his trust in Shaw’s character, the employees of the Tower would not be out all of their retirement.

He recruits a crack team of criminals to get the money back for his employees. Unfortunately only one of them has any criminal background and Slide (Eddie Murphy) hardly knows any of the crew. Can they reclaim what is there’s? Or will this be just another crash and burn experience for Josh?

First and foremost let’s get this out of the way; Tower Heist will make you laugh. I know many of my critical brethren will look at this film and immediately discount it. But they can’t knock the fact that it’s funny.

We’ve waited for years for Eddie Murphy to have some of the restraints taken off of him to return to his funniest and although this doesn’t go far enough to really unchain him, it DOES give a glimpse of that old school Murphy humor.

It’s not only Murphy, with a cast like this, you can’t help but find a variety of funny moments. From roles for Casey Affleck and Matthew Broderick to the “villain” Alan Alda and small moments for Gabourey Sidibe and Tea Leoni, this film is loaded with talent.

Some uneven sequences do exist and I have problems with the structure of the film at times, but this isn’t Citizen Kane, nor does it pretend to be.

Tower Heist is a solid funny buddy film that will have you giggling until the end all while yearning for someone to really let Eddie Murphy go again.

B

Tower Heist

Universal Pictures

Director: Brett Ratner

Cast: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick

Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual content.

Runtime: 1 hour 44 minutes