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.