Mania Grade: B

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• Starring: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Tea Leoni, Michael Pena, and Gabourey Sidibe
• Written by: Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson
• Directed by: Brett Ratner
• Studio: Universal Pictures
• Rating: PG-13
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Series:

Mania Review: Tower Heist

Tower Heist
© Universal Pictures/Robert Trate

 Calling Tower Heist the best movie Brett Ratner ever made isn’t saying much. The inexplicably popular Rush Hour series remains a blight on Jackie Chan’s career, and while I don’t flat-out hate X3, no one mistakes it for a high point of the franchise. He’s slick, vacuous and utterly without vision. He directs studio piffle with no eye on anything but box office, and while he knows how to sell tickets, he doesn’t have the first clue how to get anyone to remember his movies five minutes after they’ve seen them.

Within that framework, however, Tower Heist does surprisingly well. The very things that make it so corporate also work in its favor: clever dialogue, star power, a fun caper, and a smooth package that makes them all work together. Perhaps most importantly, it lets Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy – two very funny men in the right circumstances  -- play off of each other for the first time ever. The pairing proves inspired, and the large supporting cast (including Casey Affleck, Tea Leoni, and Gabourey Sidibe) contributes some significant chemistry as well. They run through a story as gimmicky as they come, but one which turns out solid entertainment almost by force of will alone.

Stiller plays Josh Kovacs, manager of a luxury high rise in New York City who runs the pampering of its wealthy occupants like a Swiss watch. Trouble rises when the penthouse resident (Alan Alda) is arrested for financial malfeasance that includes making the staff’s pension plans vanish in a puff of smoke. Kovacs intends to get even by robbing the man blind, with a little help from a local hood (Murphy) and a gaggle of insiders working in the tower.

Ratner borrows liberally from his betters at every turn: Murphy’s moment in a jail cell echoes 48 HRS and a subsequent conversation in an automobile takes us on a trip to French Connection country, to cite just a pair of examples. But he never cuts too close to the bone and the resulting mixture feels suitably original to pass an easy inspection. More importantly, he gives the cast room to roam: a move that both endears us to them and lets the script’s more clever aspects come to the fore.

The women in the cast take the best advantage of it. Leoni’s straight-laced FBI Agent could have been relegated to straight-man duties, but she finds a nice banter with Stiller that lets their on-again off-again partnership shine. Sibide, for her part, is a mild revelation. Her polite, capable maid steals nearly every scene she’s in and she more than holds her own against the proven stars in the cast. The actress is clearly not satisfied with just being that girl from Precious, and she has the screen presence to make a long and fruitful career if she so wishes.

In the end, though, it falls to Murphy and Stiller to carry the load. The latter clearly relishes the opportunity to play someone tough and capable rather than the well-meaning dipshits on which he made his name. As for the former, this is the first reminder we’ve seen of his real star power since Bowfinger. Indeed, it raises shades of the 1980s Murphy, who ruled the box office with an iron fist and made us all believe in his comedic genius. Their interplay works wonders with the material and keeps us impulsively watching even during the film’s dodgier parts.

It’s a good thing too, because the story often coasts on fuzzy logic rather than ratcheting its details tight. We never feel the thrill of a well-executed plan or understand how the various plot elements are supposed to come together. Ratner organizes the various plot twists appreciably well, and juggles the major players with admirable dexterity, but the logic underlying his set pieces only gets flimsier as the film goes on.  Tower Heist seems to instinctively understand that, however, and wisely focuses its efforts on the strongest cards in its deck. It stays away from obvious political messages concerning rich crooks and the working Joes they’ve fucked, content to make the point and then get on with the job of entertaining us without unduly showy statements. It never overreaches, and doesn’t dilute its good time by travelling too far from its comfort zone. It even attains a strange sort of retro charm: if you squint at it right, it might have been made 25 years ago very easily. That’s a mild gift to be sure, but an undeniably enjoyable one… something we Ratner detractors never could have predicted.