Tower Heist

Plot synopsis:
Josh Kovacs is the building manager of The Tower, a high-rise luxury apartment complex on Central Park West in New York City whose employees include concierge Charlie, his brother in law; Enrique, an elevator operator; Lester, the doorman nearing retirement; Odessa, a maid; and Miss Iovenko, who furtively studies for her bar exam at work.One morning Josh sees what appears to be a kidnapping of Tower tenant and wealthy businessman Arthur Shaw. Josh gives chase and almost catches him when he is clotheslined by FBI agent Claire Denham. Denham explains that Shaw wasn't being kidnapped, he was attempting to flee arrest, accused of running a Ponzi scheme. Josh tells the Tower staff about Shaw's arrest and explains that he gave Shaw their pension fund to invest, and their money is gone. Josh, Charlie and Enrique visit Shaw, under house arrest in his penthouse apartment. Josh tells Shaw that Lester attempted suicide after losing everything he had. Shaw expresses condolences but appears insincere. Josh responds by destroying the windows of a Ferrari 250 Shaw has on display in his apartment. The building's owner is furious at Josh's action and fires Josh, Charlie and Enrique.Josh meets Denham at a bar and she invites him to get drunk. As they drink she says Shaw must have had a cash safety net and suggests in jest that he find and steal it. Josh gathers Charlie, Enrique, and former Tower tenant Mr. Fitzhugh to draw up a plan to steal Shaw's money. Charlie brings up the obvious drawback that they are not thieves. Josh hires his neighbor, a petty criminal named Slide, to help. Slide trains the team but realizes he cannot do the robbery because he doesn't know how to crack the safe in Shaw's apartment. They bring in Odessa, whose family ran a locksmith business. Charlie tells Josh he's been rehired as the Tower's new manager, and Charlie warns Josh to stay away or he will have him arrested. Denham then tells Josh that a hearing for Shaw has been scheduled for Thanksgiving during the Macy's Day Parade to avoid publicity, and Shaw will go free. Josh and his team decide to break into Shaw's apartment during the parade.The team reaches Shaw's apartment, breaks down a false wall and finds Shaw's safe behind it; Odessa opens the safe but finds it empty. Slide and Fitzhugh struggle for Slide's gun; the gun goes off and a bullet hits the car, revealing gold underneath the Ferrari's paint. They realize Shaw invested his cash in gold, had the gold melted down and cast into car parts, and then assembled the car in his apartment where the gold would be hidden in plain sight. Josh finds a ledger of Shaw's illegal finances in the car's glove box. They lower the car out the window into Fitzhugh's old apartment six floors below, and then take it down to the lobby on top of an elevator. Just as they reach the lobby Agent Denham and Shaw return and take the same elevator back up. Denham sees Shaw's safe and informs him that he did not declare the safe on an inventory of items taken when he was arrested, which is a violation of the conditions of his bail. She has him remanded back into custody.Denham sees Lester using a stolen truck to try to escape from the building. She catches up to him, assuming he is fleeing with the Ferrari, but finds the truck empty. The FBI arrests him and Josh's other accomplices. She personally handcuffs Josh and privately congratulates him. As Josh is being questioned by the FBI, Miss Iovenko arrives, telling the FBI that she passed her bar exam three days ago and is acting as Josh's attorney. She shows them Shaw's ledger and tells them she will turn it over in exchange for everyone's freedom. The FBI accepts on the condition that Josh, being the primary conspirator, must serve a minimal two-year sentence.The team retrieves the car from its hiding place in Shaw's rooftop pool and send various parts of the car to Tower employees to compensate for their lost pensions. As the movie ends Shaw begins his life sentence and Josh is booked into jail, a satisfied smile slowly forming on his face.

Tags: revenge, comedy, humor

Review:
Alan Alda makes for a good slimy villain, and Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, and Matthew Broderick (as well as their co-stars) make a likable bunch of people with a goal that you hope they will be able to reach.
I hadn't seen a good Eddie Murphy movie in some time and when I saw the trailer I thought it was going to be a very predictable story line.
On a comparative rating, 'Tower Heist' doesn't even get close.'The Tower' is a luxury high rise apartment (actually filmed at Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan) where the hard working staff led by Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) make sure that its high profile tenants are pampered.
Managing a high end apartment skyscraper in New York, his team look after and cater for all the foibles of their rich charges.Living in the penthouse suite with a rooftop swimming pool emblazoned with a Dollar Bill mosaic is Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), a wealthy financier with Steve McQueen's Ferrari in his living room.How did it get up there, they took it apart and moved it piece by piece, subtle this is not.Josh plays online chess with Arthur, likes him and entrusts the employees pension fund to him to "double their money", unbeknown to his work colleagues.With a story ripped from recent headlines, Shaw is soon in trouble with the FBI, notably pretty detective (Tea Leoni).
Odessa, a chambermaid with a bizarre Jamaican accent and a handy sideline in safe-cracking (Gabourey Siibe) and lastly, Mr Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick), depressed, straitlaced, crumpled ex-banker and ex-apartment owner.We are all set for a decent farce with elements of drama, however the movie is set for fun and mostly delivers.This a rare Hollywood comedy that is actually funny.
Whether the group are planning their heist using Lego, getting distracted with Female Sexuality issues or breaking off mid heist to walk a residents pet dog.Overall of course it's all very silly and preposterous but it is good to see Eddie Murphy funny again, his sequence with Odessa, as she teaches him the in's and out's of safe-cracking is well done.
Alan Alda also lifts the film with his considerable talents bought to bear on the smarmy Mr Shaw.Like any comedy caper, the tone needs to be right and the project is very much a light soufflé but Director Brett Ratner manages to pull off the various elements, to make this a fun night in.Summary That rare event, a Hollywood comedy that manages to both entertain and provide a light sprinkling of social commentary.The film is largely designed to be a crowd pleaser and largely fulfils that role admirably http://julesmoviereviews.blogspot.co.nz/.
Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Judd Hirsch, Tea Leoni, Stephen Henderson, and Gabourey Sidibe star in "Tower Heist" from 2011.It's a caper movie, and it's a light and fun one.
It's a shame Eddie Murphy's career took a nose dive; he's no less talented than he used to be.With the Macy's Day Parade, particularly Snoopy in the background, Matthew Broderick hanging by a rope, Gabourey Sidibe running her trolley into a guard and knocking him out, you'll have a good time.
Right?In Tower Heist, Ben Stiller plays subservient chief of staff at a ritzy Central Park apartment complex — but when a tenant (Alan Alda) swindles him and his workforce out of their pensions, it's no more Mr. Nice Josh.
Unschooled as they are in the art of the steal, Josh also employs the aid of petty criminal "Slide," (Eddie Murphy) who gives the crew a crash course in crime.The cast of Tower Heist, anchored by Stiller, Alda, and the under-appreciated 'other' Affleck, is its greatest asset.
Brett Rather directs this hilarious story of Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) an uptown high rise apartment, manager who's principal tenant is Arthur Shaw, an unscrupulous multi-millionaire (Alan Alda).
With top actors like Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck and Matthew Broderick the film becomes a comedic romp through uptown New York during the annual Macy's Day Parade.
Aside from that, when one of the characters finds a Ledger in the boss's office it is clearly marked "LEDGER." Of course people would clearly know what it is when Ben Stiller opens it, so why does the film insist on hammering little things into our heads.Tower Heist provides dopey and acceptable escapism for people who are looking for it, but when seeking out a witty satire in the vein of something like Ocean's Eleven it sort of flounders in and out.
His heist group is made up of innocent and shaky Vince (Broderick), loud-mouth Slide (Murphy), goofy but favorable Enrique (Pena), and the always enjoyable Casey Affleck who plays Charlie.The cast is undeniably great as it works its way through a pretty decent script, some of which written by Ted Griffin who, ironically, was a part of the writing for the Ocean's Eleven remake.
After a line of massive critical and financial failures, he gives a performance that alone makes Tower Heist worth seeing.Come to think of it, I didn't start laughing much until Murphy came on the screen about a half hour in.
Starring: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, Alan Alda, and Gabourey Sidibe.
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 is a great movie with a well written storyline with a great comedic cast.I was certainly disappointed by this movie,it teams up two comedy actors who I am huge fans of,Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy,and on top of that it also stars Matthew Broderick and Casey Affleck,and while it is an enjoyable movie,I gave my hopes up on this being an outstanding comedy,because I expecting nothing more with a comedy cast like this,also it was Murphy's first adult comedy on years.It still is a really good comedy however,and the best performance certainly has to be Eddie Murphy,it was a great comeback to characters like his Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop characters,the much better and way funnier Murphy that I really missed,and this movie is certainly much better than the movies he's done in recent years (Meet Dave,Norbit,etc.) and I hope he realises after doing this film that these comedy suit him much more than family friendly ones.Tower Heist is a very enjoyable comedy that I would recommend to all fans of comedy,Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller.After a group of men discover they have fallen in to a Ponzi scheme,they hire a professional thief to help them break in to his residence at the top of a tower.Best Performance: Eddie Murphy.
Shaw says "Of course I care what happens to Lester." Josh replies "Well how come you haven't asked whether he lived or died?"Overlooked in the discussion about the movie has been the character Mr. Fitzhugh, played by Matthew Broderick.
His best scenes happen when Josh (Ben Stiller) bails him out of jail to ask for his help with the "Tower Heist." Slide: "Soooo, seizure boy wants to try to steal something.
When his fund is exposed to law enforcement and in the press as a Ponzi scheme, it falls to building manager Josh Kovacs (played by Ben Stiller) to inform the staff of The Tower that he'd invested their pensions with Shaw and that said pensions are most likely lost.
But knowing they're in over their heads, Josh enlists Slide (played by Eddie Murphy), a thief and Kovacs neighbor who he once went to school with.I've never been a big fan of Ben Stiller and while I have great appreciation for Eddie Murphy's early work (the Beverly Hills Cop series, Coming to America and even The Distinguished Gentleman) I've long-believed his best years as anything but a voice actor were behind him.
Kovaks had walked passed Slide nearly every day on his way to work at the Towers.A fun, sometimes predictable but occasionally unpredictable heist movie designed as pure entertainment.
I think this movie was interesting because we can watch the acting from senior actors like Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy.
"Tower Heist" is filled with an all-star cast, which includes Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Alan Alda, and Matthew Broderick.
If that was funny enough, then get this: it was unfunny when compared to the absolutely hilarious scene that happened a little later (I will not spoil this great joke, but it involves Ben Stiller's character explaining instructions).The heist was fun, too, with humour mixed in to contribute to the action to make it even better.
The last hour or so packs a lot of laughs, and while the end of the movie was in most respects a feel-good ending, the movie didn't lapse into a complete saccharine-filled conclusion by making sure that Josh (Ben Stiller) ended up in jail for his part in the heist.
I thought everyone offered a good performance, and while the cast was large, by the end no one really seemed extraneous.Aside from Stiller, who's always capable enough, the primary members of the cast were Alan Alda as investment guru Arthur Shaw (charged with fraud, including stealing the pension money of the employees in the luxury apartment tower in which he lives), Eddie Murphy as street crook Slide (who gets taken on as a sort of technical adviser when some of the employees of the tower decide to rob Shaw's apartment to get their money back) and Tea Leoni as FBI Agent Claire Denham, who's out to get Shaw and develops a friendship with and sympathy for Josh.
Josh is quick to defend his friend until he learns that his staff's pensions are gone with the wind - and that Shaw may have $20 million in undeclared money still in his apartment.Josh confronts Shaw and quickly loses both his cool and his job; then, along with his brother and law/concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck), former finance guy-turned-squatter Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick), and the new elevator operator Enrique (Michael Pena), he comes up with a plan to get everyone their money back in just the way you'd expect from a movie plot - a hare-brained scheme.
Josh isn't a small man thrust into a big situation; he is a normal man who truly does know his stuff and forms a plan to reach a particular goal - just as you'd imagine a real-life hotel manager to be.Eddie Murphy also plays his role with a lot more subtlety than you'd expect.
For me, though, I found the ending to be the best of all worlds - plausible, not too tidy, and still at least a mild surprise.I singled out Stiller and Murphy for their great work here, but there really are a lot of other good performances: Broderick, Pena, Alda, Tea Leoni (FBI agent), Affleck, Stephen Henderson, and Gabourey Sidibe (the latter is really terrific).
It stars Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Michael Pena, Tea Leoni and Gabourey Sidibe (of 'PRECIOUS' fame).
Stiller is the lead and does a good job but it's Murphy who makes the film really worthwhile, playing a part largely reminiscent of those that made him the biggest movie star in the world, for a couple years at least, in the 80's (and probably his best role since 1988's 'COMING TO America')!Stiller plays the manager of a high-rise residential apartment building named Josh Kovacs.
Since we all have been missed Eddie Murphy for a bit, we should really look at Tower Heist as a GOOD return.Even though Ben Stiller is the main character here, all the looks goes to Eddie Murphy from the whole movie.
Probably like every other robbery movie you can watch, always an improbable situation escaping reality, like Leverage.Tower heist has good actors doing good performances, but, as i've said before, you gonna pay more attention to Eddie than all the other together.
I mean, you got Matthew Broderick, Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Michael Pena, Casey Affleck, and Tea Leoni among others, and Alda is the only one who's good.
Fourth off, and finally, Alda is so good that you almost wish Tower Heist was a movie all about Arthur rather than a film just simply revolving around Arthur.
Tower penthouse owner Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) in New York City loses the life savings of the Tower's staff in a Ponzi scheme worthy of Bernie Madoff.Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller), manager of the building, and a few select staff plan a heist to get back the money and more.
I enjoyed seeing Eddie Murphy have fun in a movie role.Ben Stiller does a good job as the ringleader, who uses his knowledge of the tower to plan the heist.
And, Alan Alda is very good as the Wall Street criminal.Tower Heist is very funny, the actors are great with good chemistry, and the movie has some good suspense and a satisfying conclusion.
Was hoping to see Eddie Murphy return to some sort of form after a few bad movie choices, and I really like Ben Stiller (apart from the Night at the Museum films).Some OK performances, but none of the actors really got into the role - though Eddie at least tried in his usual miserable guy and then funny guy character, but 5% of what he did in Trading Places.My Wife and I felt that it was not funny enough to be a "proper" comedy.
With Eddie Murphy as the criminal who trains a bunch of cheated employees from The Tower, and Ben Stiller who is the manager for the workers and now the gang leader out to get even with their boss, you can expect lots of funny remarks and antics from them.
The film's best moments come courtesy of Murphy's instructions, teaching the bunch of rookies- including the ringleader Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller), the slow-witted Charlie (Casey Affleck), the jumpy Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) and the naïve Enrique (Michael Pena)- what it takes to be a criminal.
Yet as much as the film is played for laughs, it doesn't forget that its characters are mirrored on those who have similarly lost their jobs or even their life savings in the wake of the economic crisis over the past three years- so Ratner and his screenwriters give the movie added emotional heft through Lester (Stephen McKinley Henderson), the veteran doorman of The Tower who tries to commit suicide when he realises his money which he gave to Shaw to invest is all gone.
Tower Heist put itself forward as a comedy caper movie and as such I thought it sounded perfect and I didn't expect too much.
The title of the movie is self explanatory, it's about a group of people makes a robbery on a tower as a revenge for a specific action against them, so will it be a successful robbery ?This is a type of movies that you don't feel the time pass by while watching, the actors are funny and nice to watch, they were introduced in a good way without getting involved into unneeded details.There is no laughing out loud moments here but it's quite enjoyable, the plot is simple but it's kinda late and there's no much challenges shown.All the actors did well, "Ben Stiller" is more prominent because he had more screen time but his performance is equal to the others, the detective actions are the weakest point in the movie with a lot of unjustified actions by her.You will enjoy beautiful scenes of New York City and its landscape specially during festivals, you will also get an idea about how the Tower operates and it spotlights on unnoticed jobs.Finally, it's a light action/drama/comedy movie that lacks a lot of excitement but not to a degree that makes you bored..
Ben Stiller, Mathew Broderick, Casey Affleck and Eddie Murphy, what a superb and hilarious comedy cast!
"Tower Heist" starts fine: Ben Stiller is the general manager of a posh New York apartment building, who having found out that he had turned over all of the staff's pension monies to an alleged swindler (Alan Alda), plans an elaborate heist to steal the money back.
Well, I watched with not many expectations as it was a comedy with Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, so I just hoped to be entertained and the movie did that very well.
Anyway, Ben Stiller & Eddie Murphy have a good chemistry and they provide some funny moments with the characters of Casey Affleck, Michael Peña & Matthew Boderick.
Apart from the fact that I have always enjoyed Ben Stiller's comedies (well, except for Little Fockers), and the fact that Brett Ratner, the director behind the hilarious Rush Hour trilogy was directing this movie; I think what myself and many other people particularly anticipated was the return of Eddie Murphy to an all-star line-up in a blockbuster comedy film.
Great cast with Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Alan Alda.
So, with the help of fellow employees (Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, Gabourey Sidibe), an out-of-luck tenant (Matthew Broderick) and petty crook Slide (Eddie Murphy), Josh plans the robbery of Shaw's apartment to reclaim what is his.For a film so reliant on consistent comedy to earn appraisal, it opens very slowly, trudging along with a greater priority placed upon plot foundations than actual humour.
Tower Heist....Eddie Murphys return to mainstream comedy...Kind ofWhile this movie was no where as clever as it seems it does not fail to entertain.
If your just looking for pure fun and laughs, this movie is for you.A great cast, good directing, silly plot, and just pure entertainment.
Has a nice cast with Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Eddie Murphy, Judd Hirsch, Ben Stiller, Tea Leoni, and Gabourey Sidibe - they do a nice job with what they have.