Review

Review Date: 6-November-11
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Tower Heist (2011)

The residents of Manhattan's priciest high-rise, "The Tower," receive superior service from the building's staff. Not only do the maids, elevator operators, security guards, concierge, and doorman call cabs and keep the lobby clean, they remember the residents' birthdays, walk their pets, monitor their party guests, and ensure they don't run afoul of any superstitions they might hold. Day in, day out, the residents are politely condescending while the staff is obsequiously attentive. This demarcation between masters and servants strikes me as anachronistic and disturbingly un-American, but at The Tower everyone accepts it and plays his or her part. At least they do until one resident's criminal egotism threatens his menials' ability to survive, at which point fawning gives way to retribution.

This is the premise of the comedy caper Tower Heist, and as Hollywood fantasies go it's not a bad one. Even viewers who don't feel oppressed by The Man are likely to respond to such a clear-cut case of the little guy righting a wrong. The movie's unevenness, however, is not something everyone will be able to overlook. After a rocky start in which male and female reproductive organs are repeatedly mentioned in an attempt at comedy, The Tower's top-drawer financier Arthur Shaw emerges as the resident evil. (He is played by Alan Alda, who has a knack for supercilious bastards.) It falls to building manager Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) to inform his staff that Shaw has been arrested for fraud and has, most likely, lost or stolen all of their pension funds. After the kindly old doorman is driven to desperation by the news, Josh decides to steal the nest egg that he thinks is hidden in Shaw's penthouse, based on information he gets from an FBI agent who is, of course, an attractive single woman. (With her abundance of charm, Téa Leoni lends sparkle to this superfluous role.) Josh enlists several unlikely partners including a failed Wall Street broker who was evicted from The Tower (Matthew Broderick) and the building's fretful concierge (Casey Affleck, a model of authenticity).

The team of vengeful misfits fails to live up to the comic promise that so tantalizes in their scenes of gathering and the movie's trailer. The banter of nervous enthusiasm leads to an extended action sequence involving a sports car and the high-rise itself during which interaction becomes trite and disbelief must be suspended. (For people in over their heads, they sure accomplish some amazing feats.) The biggest and oddest disappointment is how little Eddie Murphy contributes as a convict whom Josh recruits to bring criminal experience to the project. Although he headlines with Stiller, Murphy is sporadically used and all but forgotten by the time the heist comes to a close. What a waste of the fast-talking, fast-adapting character which made him famous. If it scores at the box office, Tower Heist can't be accused of stealing lower- and middle-class America's hard-earned money. But it can be written off as another decent idea that didn't quite come together.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.