Tower Heist
Review by Melissa Christidis
|
|
|
Tower Heist
|
Watching a group of amateur burglars attempt to somehow drop a very,
very expensive car from the penthouse floor down the side of the
building (kind of the same way one would see a window cleaner hoisted
on the external face of a very tall NYC high rise), you could easily be
forgiven for mistaking Ben Stiller for a shorter, brunette equivalent
of Indiana Jones. Quite the contrary to his tight-leather
tight-lipped, mirror-obsessed male-model role he played ‘oh so well’ in
Zoolander. Ahh Zoolander, one of my ‘frequently-googled movie
line’ films to pull out at parties. But enough about the great
Zoolander, let’s talk about the ‘Tower’.
Tower Heist
is about Arthur Shaw who manages a very 'swanky' apartment residence
block in NYC. The guy's a millionaire. Wait, make that billionaire.
Although Arthur is under house arrest after being caught stealing two
billion from his investors. Most of which, was derived from pensioner
funds and other avenues which leave the employees of the Tower short
changed, massively.
Josh Kovacs (played by Ben Stiller)
manages the residence and thinks it's appalling that Arthur has gambled
away the employees' pensions and life savings. So he seeks revenge.
Revenge that consists of creating a group of "Heist" employees
attempting to be criminals to get back the cash from Arthur. I
like to refer to the group as a "boy band" in "bandits" – whilst
slightly amusing (Eddie Murphy plays a bad boy fresh from jail that's
brought in to show this group how the "criminals really roll") – their
continued failed attempts at stealing the cash and the final ploy for
them to earn it all back does to me seem a little far-fetched. That
said, the debacles of their inexperienced group attempting to gain back
their "mula" does bring on the odd chuckle. Tower Heist is the type of
movie that gives you the occasional "squirm in your seat" moment as
you're left biting your nails to see how the plot will play out.
The
continuous slapstick (perhaps unintentional) and adventurous manoeuvres
made me question whether Brett Ratner was delivering an action, comedy
- or god forbid – romance movie (yes, of course, Stiller falls
in love with a bad arse chick from the FBI. How cliché) because it's
never quite a strong enough comedy or action movie to really stand up
as a great example of one particular genre. The
Eddie Murphy jokes are very cliché, as were the reference to the
oversized-African woman falling for Eddie - but there is fun to be had
here (albeit slightly bland).
If you can remain engrossed in
the plot rather than picking at all the lame jokes and dreaming that
you too, had a rooftop pool overlooking NYC, you might half enjoy the
thing. I'm feeling very impartial to this one.
3 out
of 5
Tower Heist
Australian release: 26th December,
2011
Official
Site: Tower Heist
Cast: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Téa Leoni, Gabourey
Sidibe, Casey Affleck, Stephen Henderson, Judd Hirsch, Michael Peña,
Alan Alda
Director: Brett Ratner
|
