Just the Ticket #11: Tower Heist
After seeing the incredible make-up job that turned Leonardo DiCaprio into J. Edgar Hoover, I was disappointed to see that Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar was not available for rent this week.
However, I was fortunate to see a somewhat well-concocted comedy in Tower Heist. Ben Stiller, Michael Pena, Casey Affleck, and Matthew Broderick star as employees of the Tower hotel who have their pensions Ponzi'd away by Arthur Shaw (a Bernie Madoff stand-in played viciously by Alan Alda). Enlisting the help of Eddie Murphy's professional criminal (words which should have sarcastic quotation marks around them) and a locksmith's daughter (Precious star Gabourey Sidibe), they plan to steal back the money while avoiding federal agents and "the most sophisticated security system in New York" (yes, these quotation marks are sarcastic, too).
As this is a comedy, some leeway must be granted when considering the use of mass stupidity and ignorance as plot devices, but sometimes our merry band of misfits seems to be a tad too lucky, dissolving the illusion of entertaining comedy and exposing the movie for what a movie essentially is: a thoroughly rehearsed presentation of a script.
Speaking of script, I was impressed by the writers' ability to get Tower Heist as close to the PG-13/R line as they could without using the F-word. But what makes up for the weakly motivated comedy that resides at the core of Tower Heist are the drama and story development that transform Stiller's character--and the film itself--from a straight shooter to a thing diminished, and the resolution that brings us as close to reality as a happy ending will allow.
C+
However, I was fortunate to see a somewhat well-concocted comedy in Tower Heist. Ben Stiller, Michael Pena, Casey Affleck, and Matthew Broderick star as employees of the Tower hotel who have their pensions Ponzi'd away by Arthur Shaw (a Bernie Madoff stand-in played viciously by Alan Alda). Enlisting the help of Eddie Murphy's professional criminal (words which should have sarcastic quotation marks around them) and a locksmith's daughter (Precious star Gabourey Sidibe), they plan to steal back the money while avoiding federal agents and "the most sophisticated security system in New York" (yes, these quotation marks are sarcastic, too).As this is a comedy, some leeway must be granted when considering the use of mass stupidity and ignorance as plot devices, but sometimes our merry band of misfits seems to be a tad too lucky, dissolving the illusion of entertaining comedy and exposing the movie for what a movie essentially is: a thoroughly rehearsed presentation of a script.
Speaking of script, I was impressed by the writers' ability to get Tower Heist as close to the PG-13/R line as they could without using the F-word. But what makes up for the weakly motivated comedy that resides at the core of Tower Heist are the drama and story development that transform Stiller's character--and the film itself--from a straight shooter to a thing diminished, and the resolution that brings us as close to reality as a happy ending will allow.
C+
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