Tower Heist
DIRECTED BY BRETT RATNER
It might seem hard to believe that Brett Ratner hasn’t graced multiplex audiences with a feature film since 2007’s inert cash-in Rush Hour 3, but if his latest action comedy, Tower Heist, is any indication, the man hasn’t lost a step. Readers familiar with Ratner will get by based on their tolerance for his previous works. The uninitiated are in for a mostly amusing, occasionally thrilling diversion with a handful of belly laughs, several technically intense set pieces, and a story that makes the absolute least amount of sense possible.
Ben Stiller stars as Josh, the head of security for the poshest condo building on New York’s Upper West Side, who’s put in the unenviable position of having to explain to his fellow staffers that he entrusted the worker’s pensions to recently indicted Wall Street swindler Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) and that their livelihoods are wiped out. After getting fired for daring to confront Shaw for taking what little money they had, Josh decides to steal Shaw’s hidden nest egg with the help of his concierge brother-in-law (Casey Affleck), a dimwitted elevator operator (Michael Pena), an evicted investment banker (a surprisingly strong Matthew Broderick), and the Jamaican housekeeper who just so happens to also know how to crack a safe (a scene-stealing Gabourey Sidibe). Josh also enlists the help of a neighbourhood thug named Slide (Eddie Murphy) to compensate for the fact that none of them have any clue how to steal anything.
In typical Ratner fashion, everything looks phenomenal (thanks to Dante Spinotti’s gorgeous cinematography), but his crew of five writers can’t come up with a plot that makes a lick of sense. The actual mechanics of the titular heist defy all sense of logic, rational thought, and in the oddly thrilling climax, every possible law of physics.
Stiller and Alda make extremely well-paired adversaries in a scenario that is nothing if not timely. Stiller plays Josh as refreshingly proactive instead of wimpy, and Alda is sufficiently smarmy. Murphy, however, seems shoehorned into the film and oddly out of place amongst the heist crew. It’s nice to see Murphy outside of fat suits and family films, but he’s not given very much to do, and the film’s shoddy editing often distressingly cuts him out of the film. Then again, that’s a Brett Ratner movie for you.