Tower Heist

Tower Heist - Dir. Brett Ratner (2011)

Don't you wish the Occupy movement could have struck at the one percent in a better way than camping out in the park and hoping they'd be driven off by their rank body odor? Tower Heist might satiate your thirst as a lightweight revenge fantasy about a group of working class stiffs striking back against the malevolent corporate elite.

Ben Stiller heads up an all-star cast as Josh Kovacs, the building manager for a Manhattan highrise played by the Trump International Hotel and the Trump Tower. The tower is the home to a hodgepodge of wealthy citizens and Kovacs caters to their every whim. The most famous and richest is Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), an investment banker, who lives in the penthouse complete with a rooftop pool decorated by a giant hundred dollar bill and Steve McQueen's Ferrari in his living room. Shaw has more money than everyone else in the building combined, but he'll happily remind you he grew up in Queens and used to shovel horse manure at the racetracks. Shaw's genial demeanor rapidly fades when he is arrested for fraud of Bernie Madoff proportions. This includes the pension for the entire staff as well as the retirement fund for Lester (Stephen Henderson), the elderly doorman. Kovacs is pushed to the breaking point when poor Lester attempts to commit suicide. He vows to get back the money by any means necessary.

Kovacs believes Shaw has a hidden nest egg inside his apartment and gathers together a crew of misfits to plan the heist. He recruits brother-in-law & concierge Charlie (a wonderfully understated and self-deprecating Casey Affleck), dopey elevator operator Enrique (Michael Pena), and bankrupt stock broker Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick). None of them know anything about stealing, but Kovacs knows someone who does...a black guy. The final member of the team is Slide (Eddie Murphy), a larcenous neighbor who used to go to daycare with Kovacs as children. The climactic crime sees the crew sneak into Shaw's penthouse amidst the hustle and bustle of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Even if it sounds like a backhanded compliment, Tower Heist is by far the best work of director Brett Ratner. He'll never direct anything substantial, but he is a master of slick and hollow blockbusters. Tower Heist is a well made comedy that follows in the footsteps of the Ocean's franchise. In fact, the project was originally pitched by Eddie Murphy as an urban version of Ocean's Eleven, with Murphy hoping to star alongside talents like Chris Rock, Eddie Griffin, and Dave Chappelle. The screenplay was hammered down to a blue collar alternative to the ritzy Soderbergh pictures. The credited writers are Ocean's Eleven scribe Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson, who previously worked with Ratner on Rush Hour 2 and 3. There were also numerous uncredited rewrites by Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball), Leslie Dixon (Limitless), and Noah Baumbach (Greenberg). Despite all these writers, there are plot holes aplenty, the jokes aren't particularly witty and most of the humor skates by thanks to the easy chemistry of the cast. One of the funnier scenes features Slide initiating his cohorts by forcing them to steal merchandise at a trendy shopping mall. Ratner compliments the comedy with some dynamic action sequences with shout-outs to Die Hard and the iconic car chase from The French Connection.

Stiller makes a fine accounting of himself as the everyman taking charge of a situation and knowing how in over his head he is. Michael Pena has displayed strong comedic chops in Observe & Report and 30 Minutes or Less and he does so here as the team's resident dummy. Matthew Broderick is also funny as a pathetic sad sack, despite his character not being particularly useful. His math skills could have easily been replaced by the calculator app on an iPhone. What really brings the movie together is Alan Alda's performance as the villain. Alda plays up his nice guy image at the beginning of the film turning Shaw into the grandfather you wish you could have. Hey, he's Hawkeye Pierce, after all. Then, there's a slight shift in the tone of his voice that turns geniality into odious condescension.

Much has been made that Eddie Murphy's role in Tower Heist is a return to form. While it's certainly the most liveliest he's been in years, he's not quite the same Murphy from Beverly Hills Cop or 48 Hours. The few female members of the cast should also be praised. Gabourey Sidibe of Precious fame plays a Jamaican maid with a surprising talent for safecracking. Then, there's a smoky voiced Téa Leoni as a tough FBI agent and possible romantic interest for Kovacs.

There have been many unforgettable heist sequences in movie history from the Mini Cooper parade of the original The Italian Job to the silent jewelry store robbery from Jules Dassin's Rififi. Tower Heist won't ever be mentioned in the same breath as those films. Ratner's latest production is a generic comedy that matches its unimaginative title. Yet, it is a slickly shot picture and the imminently likeable cast generates enough goodwill to make it a fun hour and forty five minutes.

Rating: ** (*****)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Dir. Stephen Daldry (2011)

Is it still too soon for a film about 9/11? That criticism was levied against Paul Greengrass's United 93 when it was released in 2006. In my mind, United 93 was a riveting and emotionally draining experience because it was handled in a realistic and even handed manner. The same cannot be said for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a cloying and overly precious adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's 2005 book. The method in which the film tackles its subject matter with such saccharine sentimentalization shouldn't come as a surprise as the screenplay was penned by Eric Roth, who also adapted Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Extremely Loud deals with similar themes to Foer's debut novel, Everything is Illuminated, which was also made into a film by actor/director Liev Schreiber. Both are idiosyncratic works dealing with a protagonist on a journey to learn about themselves and their family. In Illuminated, it was the author himself. In Extremely Loud, it is eleven-year old Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn). Oskar's parents had them tested for Asperger's Syndrome, but the results were inconclusive. He has a hard time finding his place in the world and carries a tambourine to soothe his anxieties.

Oskar's father, Thomas (Tom Hanks), seems to be the only one who understands him. He tasks his son with a series of scavenger hunts to assist the boy in interacting with the outside world. Thomas is killed in the terrorist attacks leaving Oskar desperate to find meaning in his death. Oskar's mother, Linda (Sandra Bullock), doesn't have the easy rapport with Oskar her husband did and struggles to cope.

One day, he rifles through his father's belongings and discovers a key inside an envelope marked with the word, "Black." Oskar decides to look up everyone with the last name of Black in the five boroughs believing this is a final message from his late father. Along the way, Oskar gets a sidekick in an elderly mute man (Max von Sydow), who is renting a room from Thomas's mother. Known only as The Renter, he communicates through a notepad and tattoos of the words, "Yes" and "No," on his hands.

Oskar's journey encapsulates New Yorkers from all walks of life and symbolizes the romanticized view of how the city and we as a country came together after the tragedy. For the most part, these scenes feel very contrived and truncated, a meaningful message lost as it is distilled into a series of montages. Very rarely are there moments of genuine emotion. Oskar's visit to the first name on his list is the most powerful sequence in the film, due in no small part to the presence of Viola Davis, who seems incapable of giving a bad performance. In Doubt, Davis was only in one substantial scene opposite Meryl Streep, yet still garnered high praise and an Oscar nomination. She again spins gold out of a minuscule role as Abby Black, a woman in the middle of a messy divorce. Her husband (Jeffrey Wright) is rushing out of the house when Oskar comes to visit.

Wright is also solid in his supporting role as is Max von Sydow as a character that is both cartoonishly eccentric and heartbreakingly bare. As Oskar's parents, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock give fine performances, trading on their reputations for being so likable. Not faring so well is Thomas Horn, a young man discovered through his run on Teen Jeopardy. The entire film hinges on Horn, who's stilted line readings works well in short bursts to accentuate the character's detached nature. However, he is unable to handle large portions of dialogue. This is very problematic due to Oskar's continuous narration throughout the movie, a leftover remnant from the original novel.

No matter how hard they try, there is an aura of crassness that sullies whatever well meaning themes the filmmakers are attempting to portray. How can you not be revolted by the opening sequence featuring close-ups of Tom Hanks's body as plummets through the sky in slow motion? Another shot later on sees Hanks dropping out of the Tower and directly into the camera. In yet another scene, Oskar has printed out pictures from the internet of a body tumbling out of the building. He wonders if that was his father.

Director Stephen Daldry is responsible for three of the worst Best Picture nominees in recent memory, The Hours, The Reader, and now Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Released to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Extremely Loud feels less like a soothing salve on a gaping wound and more like a band-aid ripped off your arm in the most painful manner.

Rating ** (*****)