Alan Alda, left, and Ben Stiller are shown in a scene from "Tower Heist."
Directed by Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour”), “Tower Heist” turns the Bernie Madoff scandal into a fun tale of working class revenge and little more. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, except that the movie teases us with its potential. With more smarts and some sharper humor, this could have marked Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy’s grand return to comedy.
Josh Kovacs (Stiller) manages a luxury apartment, which houses New York City’s elite. The Queens native excels at his job, so much so that the tenants’ lives have become his life. He keeps them on schedule, steers them away from trouble and makes sure their favorites are on hand. The tenants like him, including billionaire Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), a friendly master of the universe who insists that he’s just an Astoria boy like Josh.
When Shaw is arrested for an epic level of financial impropriety, Josh is sickened: Shaw invested the Tower’s employees’ pension money. Now, it’s all gone. Furious, Josh demands answers from Shaw, who doesn’t care. Josh loses his cool — and his job — but there is a silver lining: The Feds can’t find Shaw’s $20 million safety net. Josh knows it is hidden somewhere in Shaw’s penthouse apartment, so he recruits two former somewhat competent employees (Casey Affleck, Michael Pena), a down-on-his-luck former tenant (Matthew Broderick), and a career criminal (Murphy) to get inside and grab the loot. What could go wrong?
Lots, of course, but we knew that. “Tower Heist” is the kind of action-packed, quick-talking, big-budget comedy that Hollywood excels at making. A lot of the credit goes to Stiller and Murphy, who shelve their tired, profitable personas. Stiller ditches the bellicose neurotic act to convincingly play a working-class stiff with a slight Noo Yawk accent. After years of relentlessly positioning himself as a family-friendly star, Murphy finally returns to what made him a comedic legend nearly 30 years ago: Poetic profanity delivered with charisma.
Murphy and Stiller may be the headliners, but “Tower Heist” is really an ensemble piece. This is shocking considering Ratner was primarily responsible for unleashing a shrieking, scenery-chewing Chris Tucker onto the masses. Alda summons up the right amount of WASP-y self-righteousness as the arrogant Shaw, and Broderick steals his scenes as the relentlessly mopey accomplice. There are pros everywhere you look, from Tea Leoni as Stiller’s flirty FBI agent foil to Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious”) as a Jamaican maid, complete with preposterous accent.
Jeff Nathanson and Ted Griffin’s script zips along, keeping the plot’s focus on the heist and not on riffing or romantic interests. “Tower Heist” is entertaining, but it never grabs us by the collar and wows us as a comedy or as an action movie. It’s wonderful to see Murphy in a comedy that doesn’t cast him as a talking donkey, but his full potential cannot be harvested in a PG-13 movie. Ratner, no craftsman, at least knows how to pace the proceedings, but almost too well: The climactic scene, where the crew tries to maneuver a sports car onto an elevator, has no real payoff — which is proven minutes later. That’s not the best way to leave an audience wanting more. It is an effective way to prevent a movie from becoming more than a pleasant afterthought.
Rating: W W 1/2
Read more of Pete’s cinematic musings at whatpeteswatching.blogspot.com or follow @PeteCroatto on Twitter.
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