This sloppy and heavy handed comedy caper quickie with a couple of comedy heavyweights and a decent supporting cast hired to stand around make faces and spew stale dialog gets jammed between floors fast. Other than it's Bernie Madoff villain played by Alan Alda walking around in cuffs most of the film it has an antiquated implausibility that gives it a 70s look and feel.
Ben Stiller is Ben Stiller, the caring look out for the underdog guy he's played in his last twelve pictures over the past three years. These days he's working at a lavish Manhattan hotel caring for guests and managing an underdog group of employees that constitute a small UN. When the unctuous Madoff like Ponzi schemer loses the money of the hotel staff Josh Kovacs (Stiller) and his employees respond harshly getting themselves fired in the process. Determined to even the score they devise a plan that looks like it was masterminded by a twelve year old.
From it's disheveled and fragmented construction you get a visceral feeling of contempt for the audience by the makers of Tower Heist. The plan lacks detail, the comedy punch and the suspense a degree of tautness to release it from it's torpor. Director Jeff Ratner known for his noisy Batman films is working with a smaller pan to bang on here but still manages to annoy in different way by getting Eddie Murphy to revise his 80s SNL Mr. Rogers neighborhood character, Stiller's one note and a pathetic Matthew Broderick to stand around looking wide eyed and medicated. Tower Heist belongs in the basement.
Ben Stiller is Ben Stiller, the caring look out for the underdog guy he's played in his last twelve pictures over the past three years. These days he's working at a lavish Manhattan hotel caring for guests and managing an underdog group of employees that constitute a small UN. When the unctuous Madoff like Ponzi schemer loses the money of the hotel staff Josh Kovacs (Stiller) and his employees respond harshly getting themselves fired in the process. Determined to even the score they devise a plan that looks like it was masterminded by a twelve year old.
From it's disheveled and fragmented construction you get a visceral feeling of contempt for the audience by the makers of Tower Heist. The plan lacks detail, the comedy punch and the suspense a degree of tautness to release it from it's torpor. Director Jeff Ratner known for his noisy Batman films is working with a smaller pan to bang on here but still manages to annoy in different way by getting Eddie Murphy to revise his 80s SNL Mr. Rogers neighborhood character, Stiller's one note and a pathetic Matthew Broderick to stand around looking wide eyed and medicated. Tower Heist belongs in the basement.