Tower Heist

Tower Heist

Directed by: Brett Ratner

Written by: Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson

Plot:

When a group of hard working guys find out they've fallen victim to a wealthy business man's Ponzi scheme, they conspire to rob his high-rise residence.

Review:

Tower Heist was a fun film that exceeded my expectations. I thought this film was going to be a lost cause with former A-listers, Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy taking the leads and Brett Ratner behind the camera (I just can’t trust him anymore after his performance working in the X-Men franchise). But surprisingly it all works and had a great mix of a good comedy and a good heist film. It is very reminiscent of the Oceans movies, which is not surprising since one of the writers, Ted Griffin, worked on the Oceans 11 screenplay.

This is also the second film I have seen in the past week relating to our countries economic state. The other being In Time (http://bigbobbosreviews.blogspot.com/2011/11/in-time.html). In Tower Heist we get a Bernie Madoff type character, played by Alan Alda, who cleans out the pockets of the middle and lower classes, the everyday man. 

In Tower Heist the everyday man strikes back. With a great ensemble of likable, everyday men, misfits that come together to take down the titan that is Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). Ben Stiller plays the leader of this group and the hero of the film. Ben Stiller was the Manager of the building they tried to rob. It was traditional Ben Stiller humor but he mostly played the straight character in this film and did not bring too many laughs. 

His supporting cast though made this film very funny. They include Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Michael Pena, and Casey Affleck. Eddie Murphy went back to his roots in this film. He went on rants, made great faces, and brought many laughs. I hope to see more of him in the future as long as he stays with his roots. He stole a bunch of scenes in this film. The character that brought the most laughs besides Eddie Murphy was Matthew Broderick. He played a Wall Street Whiz who was down on his luck. Pena and Affleck were both fine int heir respective roles. Pena played a elevator operator turned heist technician and Affleck played Stiller’s brother in law. 

One thing I really liked about this film was the script. It all flowed well and all of the character’s decisions and actions made sense. The reasons and planning of the robbery was logical. All relative to the world of the movie, of course. The film also did not have a cheesy romantic story or a cliche ending. I really thought I would hate the ending going into this film, but yet again i’ll say this film exceeded my expectations. 

Tower Heist was a very entertaining film and a movie that is hard to hate on. It is a great mix of comedy and heist and hopefully Brett Ratner will get some mojo back since this was probably his best work since Rush hour 2. If you want a fun film, go check out the not so washed up Still, Murphy, and Broderick in Tower Heist.

Rating: 7.5/10

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