Movie Review: Tower Heist

            Sometimes, as you probably know, the previews can make movies look so good and promising, and they leave you excited to see the upcoming film it teases you with. Well, the preview for Tower Heist promised me a see-it-plan-it-take-it-and-don’t-get-caught kind of heist movie (the kind I like best, especially when there’s a jail break if someone does get caught). Walking into theater 7, this is what I expected to be delivered to me.

            Well, I expected too much.

            The movie begins like this kind of heist film would. The humble-bumble building manager (Ben Stiller) does his duty and plays friends with all the rich folk until he realizes that the person he was working for stole all his employees’ pensions, including the manager’s own. The movie then goes into an odd, slowly paced, jumpy sort of planning mode for the heist. I was…well, not on the edge of my seat or remotely curious as to how they would pull it off. It was straightforward and somewhat disappointing. When you have a heist movie, one expects the romantic sort of espionage of thievery to come through. Granted, I know this was a comedy, but the title gives it a label it should automatically live up to. It didn’t: the plan sagged.

            I should commend the story, though, for building nicely until the plan—the middle. There it lagged, and while the heist itself had me on the edge of my seat at one point, it lacked a certain zing that all heist movies should have, that certain element of not knowing what’s next or how they’ll pull it off. The whole “safe in the wall” thing seemed absolutely pointless if meant for nothing else than—spoiler alert—to make Ben Stiller realize the car was made of gold. I mean, come on.

            And while the story may have moved nicely until the middle, the whole Ben Stiller/Tea Leoni romance was random and didn’t carry through. Also, the FBI needed more presence for more tension during the heist.  AND Eddie Murphy’s character Slide did nothing but succeed in making me frustrated and annoyed. However, Matthew Broderick’s character was funny, I’ll admit. He made me laugh, yes.

Slide, Eddie Murphy's character

            One last thing I would like to point out is the unnecessary use of vulgarity and innuendo. This was SUPPOSED to be a heist movie. The vulgarity added nothing and just left me raising an eyebrow and saying, “Seriously? What the heck.” And overall the story was predictable, which is NOT cool for a heist movie.

            I guess Heist was the wrong word to use. The movie gets a 2 ½ kernels out of 5.