It was bound to happen. With the way the economy tumbled the last few years, Bank of America’s charge fees, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme — someone was bound to produce a film about the little man’s revenge on the corporate machine. Now with The Occupy Wall Street movement in full swing it seems like the little man wants to push the big man around a bit.
Tower Heist is the latest movie by Brett Ratner (director of the Rush Hour trilogy) that focuses on a apartment tower in New York City. The Tower is not a run of the mill apartment building with the average apartment selling for $5 million. With that high price tag comes world class service from a team of dedicated professionals. The leader of The Tower’s service team is Josh Kovacs (played by Ben Stiller) who knows every little detail of his residents and keeps the day-to-day operations running smoothly. He is also at the beck and call for The Tower’s elite resident, Arthur Shaw (played by Alan Alda). Shaw is a member of the uber-rich class who owns his own island but also tries to to keep his down to earth persona around the hired help at The Tower.
We see a glimpse of how The Tower runs its operation with Kovacs leading his team of housekeepers, concierge, security team and doormen. He is well on his way to making it from building manager to general manager. Then he is hit when he finds that Shaw is not the everyman he thought he was but a run-of-the-mill Wall Street swindler. The FBI comes to arrest Shaw with a short but high speed pursuit. Shaw is soon placed under penthouse arrest while the courts ready for his case. Meanwhile, Kovacs has to break the news to his blue collar team that the pensions that Shaw was investing for them are now at a $0 balance.
Kovacs still wants to believe Shaw is innocent until he discovers that his doorman, Lester, has lost his life savings to Shaw then tries to commit suicide. Kovacs takes his anger and frustration out on Shaw’s prized possession and promptly loses his job.
With no job Kovacs decides to take matters into his own hands to steal his team’s money back from Shaw. He creates a team of hacks to help him break into Shaw’s penthouse. The movie finally picks up steam through Eddie Murphy. And, thank God for Eddie Murphy. Most of the jokes were falling flat up to this point and we were quickly realizing that team who included Charlie (played by Casey Afflek), Mr. Fitzhugh (played by Matthew Broderick) and Kovacs did not have much on screen chemistry.
Murphy’s character, Slide, was the shot in the arm that this story needed. He came out of left field and livened up a flat story line. His jokes, facial expressions and, more importantly, his delivery gave us a reason to laugh at such serious subject matter.
The newly formed team plans for quite a bit. And shame on the film’s editors for taking scenes and slicing them into the film for a quick joke with no real addition to the plot. Once the team is in The Tower and stealing what is rightfully theirs, the audience is put on edge through a high altitude stunt that is pulled off quite nicely as the climax of the film. Kudos to the stunt department for picking up the slack from the film editors.
Should you see this movie? Sure, it has a few jokes and some action to hold it all together. Don’t expect a sleek Ocean’s Eleven heist film though. It has a few holes in the plot that can be overlooked if you sit back and watch some working class stiffs stick it to the man.
