Tower Heist (2011)

Every once in a while there is a director that will pour their soul into every project; a Terrence Malick-type who wants to make nothing but thought-provoking artistic masterpieces every time they step behind the camera. And then there’s Brett Ratner, a man so shameless in his desire to create slick blockbusters that it can often become grating, if not infuriating. His films are frequently artless—and his personality is abrasive at best—yet Tower Heist is an example of Ratner at his most cruelly efficient. Here is a film that does a lot of things competently but almost nothing all that well, but it is such an easy pill to swallow that you hardly even notice just how profoundly dumb the movie actually is. The cast is engaging and it has its moments, but Tower Heist is just another heist movie that’s about as bland as its title.

Ben Stiller plays Josh Kovacs, the building manager of the creatively-named tower called… wait for it… The Tower. When one of its wealthiest residents (Alan Alda) is accused of running a Ponzi scheme, it is revealed that the pensions of The Tower’s employees have gone down the drain along with all his money. As an act of revenge, Stiller recruits a few fellow employees (Casey Affleck, Michael Peña and Gabourey Sidibe), a down-on-his-luck ex-millionaire (Matthew Broderick) and a career criminal (Eddie Murphy) to break in to Alda’s penthouse and steal around $20 million that he allegedly has lying around as a safety net. All the while Stiller must manage his not-strained-at-all romantic feelings for FBI agent Téa Leoni.

Tower Heist was not always the personality-free, generic heist film that it became. At first, it was pitched as a “black Ocean’s Eleven” that would unite the likes of Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock.  Now only Murphy remains, and Ben Stiller—one of Hollywood’s foremost affable white dudes—is the guy who gets top billing. What was once likely an R-rated, foulmouthed romp about a group of African Americans getting revenge on the rich white suits who have screwed them over has now an innocuous PG-13 heist film that adds absolutely nothing new to a rather tired genre. It proceeds through the clichés at an efficient pace with a handful of fun moments to be found, but it provides absolutely nothing of substance amidst the perfunctory journey from obvious plot development to plot development. Tower Heist is an artistic achievement in the same way a fast food hamburger qualifies as high cuisine. It aspires to serve one basic purpose, but when it’s over it hardly feels like a fulfilling meal.

It’s most difficult to take Tower Heist seriously during the robbery itself, which is both implausible and poorly thought-out. Yet Ratner has little interest in logic or creating memorable characters; Tower Heist is all about providing the surface-level thrills that people look for in a mainstream Hollywood movie. If nothing else, Tower Heist functions quite well as a celebrity delivery device which has been crafted by Ratner into a shiny, approachable film about which it is nearly impossible to have a strong opinion. Watching this film is an empty experience, albeit one that may convince you that you’re having a good time. It’s hard to deny the charm that comes to the surface whenever the cast takes the screen, but it’s equally hard to recommend a film that makes so little effort to be anything other than ordinary. Tower Heist is everything the previews suggest it is, and it seems content with simply meeting expectations at every turn. The only reason to be angry at the film is because of its lack of ambition, but for someone like me, that’s reason enough. At the outset, this was intended to be something rather unique, but eventually it was compromised just so it could play to the broadest possible audience. Mission accomplished.

Grade: C