Tower Heist
Release Date: November 4, 2011
Director: Brett Ratner
Stars: Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Casey Affleck
Runtime: 104 min
Tagline: Ordinary guys. An extraordinary robbery.
Unfortunately, [Tower Heist] is a bit too average and not as funny as one should expect.
After a group of hotel employees find out they have fallen victims to a very rich man’s Ponzi scheme, Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) gathers a criminal, a hotel guest and former employees to get back at this man. They conspire to rob the man of all of the money he has stolen, which is in the penthouse suite of his very tall hotel. What a very straightforward title.
It’s just very average comedy schlock, if you can call it comedy because I can hardly remember laughing-out-loud at any jokes that were told, nor can I remember which jokes were told. I may have chuckled quite a bit though. If you think of it as more of a crime film with comedic elements, maybe you’ll like it more.
Also, it’s supposed to be a comedy with action and crime; I see the crime here, but the action sequences are a smidge boring and predictable. You want to root for the guys to get the job done and get their money back, but it really isn’t anything that has to be seen. The characters are generally likeable, well except for Shaw of course.
The film has a really nice ensemble cast, and the plot’s decent but there could have been more laughs. The film starts off okay, but the pacing is off and it takes way too long to actually get to the heist.
The film stars some great drama/comedy actors like Casey Affleck and Gabourey Sidibe from Precious, and also Alan Alda, and good comedy actors like Ben Stiller, Michael Peňa and Téa Leoni, to great comedic presences like early Eddie Murphy and Matthew Broderick.
Still, it’s nothing I overly regret seeing but nothing I’d really run back to soon. But generally, it’s a comedy that most teenagers will enjoy (and I did on a moderate level) but it could have been much better.
63/100
Filmcraziest 
Good review Daniel. I was very surprised by this flick because of how much I laughed, and how well this unusual cast did together. Murphy was on top of his A-game and it really had me thinking that he was back to being the hilarious man he once was again, and then A Thousand Words came out and it all went away.
Thank you! And, hahah, I haven’t seen A Thousand Words yet but I haven’t heard anything nice about it.