Tower Heist (4/5 Stars)

Beautifully orchestrated if not especially funny

What is most impressive about “Tower Heist” is the obvious superlative aspects of its production. The story takes place mainly in the Central Park West Trump Tower, herein referred only as the “Tower.” It is a beautiful building in a beautiful part of New York City and the cinematographer, not to mention, the location scouts, have milked the opportunities for all its worth. We see really gorgeous vistas of the Manhattan skyline, we witness the opulence of the tower itself and especially its spectacular penthouse apartment, and in a rather convenient move, the title “heist” takes place during the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade when all those gigantic floats of Snoopy and Kermit the Frog are making their way down the skyscraper-laden avenue. The professionalism shown by Ben Stiller and company is perhaps the tops of any comedy production team around. Notice how they have put in special care to develop the vast array of characters, from the building manager Josh Kovacs played by Ben Stiller himself, the concierge Charlie played by Casey Affleck, the doorman Lester played by Stephen Henderson, the new elevator operator enrique played by Michael Pena, the maid Odessa played by Gabourney Sidibe, etc. etc. The story sets up that this is a well-oiled team of superior service professionals and then actually puts in the effort to prove it by throwing in the requisite vocabulary, routines, and details needed to establish such a claim. The team of writers, Ted Griffin, Jeff Nathanson, Adam Cooper, and Bill Collage seem to know what they are talking about. But above all else, notice how clean and clear the editing, directing, and score is in moving the story along. Ben Stiller’s last movie “Tropic Thunder,” was especially impressive to me in the exact same way. It did something very hard in that it kept up a breakneck pace that never confused the storyline. To help accomplish this, they seamlessly edited hardcore rap into many of the scenes. In "Tower Heist," the story's action is perfectly complemented by a brilliant "heist" score composed by Cristophe Beck. I was humming the main tune as I left the theater. Beck deserves an Oscar nomination. And I would, if I felt I had more technical expertise, also claim that the editors, sound editors, and director, Brett Ratner, also should deserve some recognition. Having said that, there is something missing here that “Tropic Thunder,” one of the best movies of 2009, had that “Tower Heist” does not: consistent laughs. “Tower Heist,” is a well-made beautifully orchestrated movie but it is not especially funny.

One of the main reasons for this has to do with the actual storyline. Whereas “Tropic Thunder” dealt with ridiculous characters making a serious Vietnam movie for the purpose of baiting the Oscars, something that is far more pretentious than actually important, the heroes of this movie are hardworking honest working men who have been defrauded of all of their pension and retirement money by the penthouse billionaire Arthur Shaw, played with just the right amount of sociopathic tendencies by Alan Alda. One of the workers, Lester the doorman was just about to retire and travel the world with the 73K he had responsibly saved up during the last three decades he had been opening doors for people. It is shown that Arthur Shaw knew his ponzi scheme was going to go up in smoke in a few months when he took all of Lester's money in order to “invest” it. When the fraud is found out and the doorman learns the fate of his life savings, he attempts suicide. This is not funny. It’s more enraging than anything else, especially because of all the real world parallels involved. Such a story line is definitely effective. We love the heroes who are trying to steal their money back. We dislike with special venom the dishonest and disrespectful billionaire. We care about the outcome of this story, but we aren’t laughing all that much during it. The fate of the doorman’s pension is not a joke.

“Tropic Thunder,” had the almost uncanny ability to get laughs from every single character in the movie. Even the straight man, Jay Baruchel, was funny. Here only a few characters can be described as comic. Gabourney Sidibe, Michael Pena, and Matthew Broderick tend to say funny things from time to time. Eddie Murphy is the funniest although his part is hardly large enough to make the movie a full blown comedy especially when the two main characters, Ben Stiller and Alan Alda, don't get any laughs at all. What they are involved in is a dramatic game of life chess with rather big stakes attached to the outcome. Like I said, it is effective, but it isn’t all that funny.

Of course in the end, a heist movie, whether it is comedic or not, will always be judged by how well done the heist is. In other words, would it have worked in real life? That’s a good question here. There are a few moments when I was like, well that shouldn’t have worked that way, but overall there were enough intelligent parts of the heist (like for instance how they got Arthur Shaw out of the apartment, how they snuck into the tower, how they cased the place, how they knew where the safe was) that the few moments that are a bit ridiculous could be swept under the movie rug we call the “suspension of disbelief.” At times the direction of the movie was so clear that I was vaguely reminded of how it felt to watch "Die Hard," the landmark movie that all skyscraper thrillers should be judged by. "Tower Heist," does not rise to the heights of "Die Hard," but I will say this; I hope you are not afraid of heights. There are some moments in this movie where you will definitely be feeling the vertigo. It was sort of unrealistic how Matthew Broderick didn’t die but hey, I can forgive the movie for not killing him.

The Rum Diary (3/5 Stars)

Weak story. Needs more rum.

Before making a movie, it helps perhaps to make sure that the recurring themes that drive the storyline do not contradict and undercut each other. What we have here are two tales. One is a comedy about an alcoholic journalist (i.e. Hunters S. Thompson before he got into hard drugs) played by Johnny Depp that has just landed a shit job working for what seems to be the only newspaper in Puerto Rico. His exploits include being kicked out of a hotel for drinking 162 miniature rums from the hotel room mini bar in a week, stumbling through his workdays with a perpetual hangover, and taking a healthy dose of that magic CIA interrogation serum that later on in the sixties (this takes place in the fifties) would be known as LSD. The second story is one of heroic journalism. The young and naïve journalist played by Johnny Depp is taken on by the rich corporate executives of Union Carbide (an inspired name choice for the more or less fictional corporation here) who want him to write "journalism" that basically subs as advertising for rich land developers and plays down the detriment done by said developments to the poor indigenous population.  Apparently taken aback by the injustice done between the classes, Depp puts on the righteous journalist hat and talks about fighting back. But this journalist isn’t very effective you know because he is a complete drunk. So therein lies the problem. You have a comedy about an unapologetic drunk that isn’t very funny because we’ve introduced the serious business of class warfare and you have a drama about the plight of the poor that isn’t very dramatic because the hero of the story spends more time drunk than actually solving the problem.

It is unmistakable that Johnny Depp and the makers of this movie admire Hunter S. Thompson a great deal. The subtitles at the end of the movie claim that out of the ashes of this particular failure one of the best journalists of like ever was born (that is somewhat paraphrased but you get the idea.) I guess, maybe. I haven’t read “The Rum Diary,” but I have read Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” That book is arguably a masterpiece. A masterpiece of what is another story. A masterpiece of fiction? Sure. A masterpiece of journalism, umm...no. Thompson was a journalist in, I suppose, the loosest sense of the word. He did not care about the facts, never met a deadline, was drunk or high most of the time, and never bothered to try for objectivity. The great thing about “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” for me at least, was the audacity of it all. Here you had a story about a couple of guys that were doing massive amounts of drugs, spending vast quantities of money they didn’t have, completely destroying the property of others everywhere they went, harassing (even raping) women, openly flaunting almost every law of public decorum sometimes to the face of police officers, and most of all, getting away with it all, completely and unapologetically. It is an unflinchingly awesome story and I bet would make a great movie. Its just that every time a Thompson book becomes a film the makers (Terry Gilliam with “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Bruce Robinson with “The Rum Diary.” Both star Johnny Depp) have not been able to match the wildness of the book. In this particular film, there is way too much concern for the Puerto Ricans. Hunter S. Thompson wouldn’t give a shit about dirty disheveled children with raggedy clothing. It is true that Thompson excelled at satirizing nasty, indulgent, and overweight American consumers and there is a brief scene in this movie at a bowling alley that gets that exactly right, but just because somebody hates the ruling class doesn’t mean that they sympathize with the downtrodden. Hunter S. Thompson was a well-written sociopath, not robin hood. To portray him as the latter has the detrimental effect of dampening and diluting the trademark style that make his books such incredible reads. 

If I had the choice, I wish this movie would have spent a lot less time with the rich people (Aaron Eckhardt and his pretty wife Amber Heard) and a lot more time with the other drunk journalists. I was pleasantly surprised by a turn here by Giovanni Ribisi, as the nastiest of the nasty drunks. He is almost completely unrecognizable from his role as the insufferable corporate boss in “Avatar.” Michael Rispoli has the Dr. Gonzo role minus the law degree. Johnny Depp does a very good Hunter S. Thompson impression, but unfortunately is about 30 years to old for this particular role. The book was written by Thompson during his very first stint as a journalist. He was in his young 20s. Johnny Depp is almost 50. He looks out of place in all the job interviews, introductory rum drinking, and flirtations with Amber Heard (who is my age). It must be said that Johnny Depp looks good for his age, but he still looks his age. We young people don’t have such fat faces.

All in all, this is an okay movie. There are no bad scenes. It is well acted and well told. But apart from several inspired lines of vocabulary uttered by Johnny Depp, it is not all that memorable. It would have been stronger if they added more rum.