Tower Heist/Dir:Brett Ratner, Screenplay: Jeff Nathanson and Ted Griffin - The proletariat’s sweet revenge

Now, upon seeing it at the theater, I was more or less feeling for a Die Hard film, with a comedic touch. And it’s more or less of what I originally envisioned, because in the action part, there’s not a lot of suspense that goes along with it. The action part of this film, is rather subdued, only to emphasise more on the comedy. The only action and suspense is it’s plot and nothing else, while the entire performances of thi comedic stellar cast, is actually hillarious. Although, to give this film a certain credit, Brett Ratner specializes himself in action-comedies, making him a cross between John Woo and Judd Apatow, and you’d probably get Brett Ratner, minus the gross-out humour. Also, to put more into context, this is a film that is made during the time of the nationwide Occupy movement, in which people happen to live and camp out in the streets, in every major city in North America in the protest of today’s crippling economy and the financial affairs of state, could it be Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, or infamously New York City, where people are camping in Wall Street. This film couldn’t have come probably at any better time, than this one or the exact date of November 5th 2011, because this is exactly what we needed. Today’s hollywood flicks are trying new ways to vent the public’s seeming frustrations about their own relationships about banks, and everything kind of financial institution there is. This film illustrates that context, through comedy and action, not trying to be dramatic in that light.


The well woven enough plot made by screenwriters Jeff Nathanson and Ted Griffin, is simply that, well written enough, but it does have flaws, and even so important plot holes. The first flaw being that it tries to hard to squeeze comedy into the film, when there’s no need for it, making the film a tad over the top. Henceforth, when you have great comedic actors like Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, and Eddie Murphy, the comedy should come seldomly from the situations. Although between the five actors, the comedy works more than fine.

The second flaw, is the unlikely «cat and mouse» banter between Alan Alda’s character Arthur Shaw, and Ben Stiller’s character Josh Kovacs, because it seems a bit unusual and overwritten. It’s also a bit unrealistic. Well, in order to explain this, I’ll have to spoil some of the plotline, so be warned from now on, consider yourself spoiled. Josh Kovacs, the housing tower manager in one Manhattan’s Astoria appartements, has taken into account that Arthur Shaw, an old shrewd broker, has mismanaged the pension money of mostly the staff of an appartement tower, losing mostly all of it in the Wall Street stock market, in the promise of investing their pensions in lucrative companies so that their actions or shares would skyrocket like no tomorrow, and sell or keep it safe somewhere. An aging doorman Lester after knowing this, tries to commit suicide by jumping on the subway railway. Kovacs upon learning this, is fuming and goes up to Shaw’s Astoria penthouse, informing him in disgust that Lester commited suicide, to Shaw’s shock. In petty retribution, he vandalizes Shaw’s assembled red pinto made into the appartement, with a club. It’s only afterward that he has those seemingly cat and mouse type dialogue, between one and other. Also, Shaw in his character depth, has the compulsion of wanting to kneel people whenever he can. Does this sincerely reflect New York stock traders for some reason ? Well Alan Alda, happens to pull this off, without doing anything to ruin it, because he downplays with subtlety anything. Well when you play a man who has power, there is just no need to impress. Just look at any billionaire, when they have power, they want to impress no one, they’re just to busy being smart for one, and screwing the next guy before he’s smart enough to screw him, at any given time.

So we come to the third flaw, which is a plothole, is the fact that some of the tower’s staff has invested into Shaw’s broking and trade management. Okay, why would ⅓ of the staff do that, seriously ? How naïve can you be ? Why even trust a broker for anything ? Was Arthur Shaw a friend for everybody in this whole Astoria tower ? Well yeah if that broker is Alan Alda, and even at sixty years old, he’s a very charismatic actor, also because he seems so nice and kind. It’s hard not to like him, and that’s the movie, it plays with that too much. He can’t be this likable for everyone. However, it’s almost mind-boggling to me, that the characters of this film have no clue or conception of what the stock market really is, especially in New York. For the reason, that for starters, the stock market is pretty much Vegas, Reno, and Atlantic City all rolled into one. You make a voyage through all of those cities simultaneously and the only end to that voyage, is suicide. There is really no other way to put it, because it’s unpredictable and you can lose to bankuptcy in a flash. Well, this is so much homespun wisdom, that this originally came from my mother, who works as a real-estate landowner. Well Shaw in this film, also happens to be the tower and land owner. Yeah I deduce that both my mom and him are fabulous with money. Well the common wisdow is this one : just dont touch the stock market, it’ll do more harm than good.

Even with a idiotic premisse, the plot can sustain enough of your attention without being too terrible.

The direction is very tight and solid, and we don’t miss a beat of it’s comedy which is assured every step of the way by Brett Ratner. Like it’s mentionned earlier, he can mix humor and action effortlessly making it pretty much it’s own specialty, as it’s shown in the Rush Hour films.

There is an amazing funny chemistry between all the cast, could it be Matthew Broderick, Ben Stiller, Michael Pena, Casey Affleck and Eddie Murphy. When you direct them together they are all very funny, only delivering good and correct performances. However there is absolutely no chemistry between Stiller and Eddie Murphy, we feel that the both of them despise each other, and on screen, they want to up stage or out-act the other person. And Stiller seems crushed over by Eddie Murphy’s character or even so his acting. There is also a huge flaw when it comes to drama, Stiller’s acting is completely oblivious to drama. Stiller has too much difficulty being serious, or to be treated seriously, because at every second, we watch him, we’re expecting to see at every two seconds, in either his current situation or in the dialogue. He’s pretty much like the French actor Pierre Richard, we just expect a gag at every two seconds or so, like Pavlov’s dog. Sadly, this means he couldn’t be in a dramatic role, and being convincing in that role for the rest of his career. I’d love to see Ben Stiller in a drama. He needs right now to leave comedy in order to be serious, and develop some sincerity, intention and conviction in his acting, because I won't believe him in every character he would want to portray. Alan Alda is succulently crapulous in the role of a shrewd broker, and he defines a character, manipulative enough for this day and age, in the character of Arthur Shaw.

A quirky film nonetheless.

2.5*/5

M.L

November 5th 2011