Culture Blues

Let’s Review Tower Heist!

As the Culture Blues Intern, it is my duty to record the post-screening discussions of my editors, so that they're not required to "sell out" and write actual cogent criticism.

Jeff is in the process of explaining to me how he invested my work-study credit for the fall semester into a pair of solid gold pants.

Jeff Hart:  You probably can’t understand this, because you’re a poor person and you have been your entire life probably which is why you’re my intern, but these pants will be worth a lot of money some day. M-O-N-E-Y. You spend it on goods and services. Do you understand, monkey?

Jeremiah glides into Jeff’s office on the Segway he invested my student loan check in. He crashes it into Jeff’s sword collection.

Jeff:  Don’t worry. I’ll write that off.

Jeremiah White: Just swinging by to see if you’re ready to review Tower Heist. I can’t wait to talk about it!

Jeff: I didn’t think you’d be so eager to review it.

Jeremiah:  I’m still riding a high from how at ease Brett Ratner’s film made me feel about our country. Things are going to turn around, buddy. I can feel it. Ratner can feel it.

Jeff:  Okay, you’re being facetious. I hope. But let me start off with my two major complaints about Tower Heist.

Jeremiah: Go ahead.

Jeff:  First, and this really has very little bearing on the final film, but Tower Heist was originally billed as Ratner’s “black” Ocean’s Eleven. But then they white-washed the cast, except for Eddie Murphy. I can’t help but wonder how that original movie would have been. Some of the characters, particularly Stiller’s hyper class-aware striver, would’ve been that much more interesting played by  a black actor.

Jeremiah:  That’s racist. In your reverse Tower Heist, is Eddie Murphy still Eddie Murphy?

Jeff:  Yes. No. Maybe he’s Michael Rapaport. I haven’t decided.

Jeremiah:  Second complaint?

Jeff:  That Tower Heist has aspirations of tapping into the populist sentiment sweeping most of the country, of being a kind of wish fulfillment for the middle-class revenging themselves against the bankers who ruined their lives. It’s a nice thought, although in the hands of a commercial hack like Ratner, it seems manipulative and trite.

Jeremiah:  Are you saying Brett Ratner can’t empathize with the service class?

Jeff:  No, he can’t. And yet, all that aside, I actually enjoyed Tower Heist. Mildly offensive pretentions of class warfare aside, the film is a fun family caper that never wears out its welcome or insults viewers’ intelligence. It’s candy, but as mainstream cinema goes, you could definitely do worse.

Jeremiah: I was really impressed with how much of the humor is allowed to come from the characters and performances than from the heist hijinks. Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick and Michael Pena are all funny guys, and when they are onscreen together, good things happen. By the time the heist finally rolls around, it’s a little disappointing that stunts and misdirection take over.

Jeff: You’re mad that Tower Heist ends with a heist?

Jeremiah: Name and plot aside, this isn’t much of a heist movie. It’s a comedy, and a silly one at that. Throughout the planning portion, Ratner seems to get that. Not as much once Stiller and Murphy are hanging above Central Park.

Jeff: Whoa! Spoiler alert!

Jeremiah: Ratner does deserve credit for staying on message though. There is a hint of a love interest for Stiller, but nothing more. And the main characters are developed through the performances and dialogue instead of tacked on subplots. It works well, and by the end I would have liked to spend some more time with the Tower Heist crew.

Jeff: I’d watch 3 episodes of the Tower Heist TV series until it got canceled.

Jeremiah: Careful what you wish for. Did you hear about the Source Code show?

Jeff: No, but Jeff from September 2011 did. Come on!

Jeremiah: Oh man, I gotta get going. The Intern’s grandma sent him a $50 Halloween check and I have a manicure appointment.

Huh?

Jeff: Really? You’re getting manicures now?

Jeremiah: Who cares? It’s free! Anyway, let’s wrap up. All this positivity about Tower Heist shouldn’t really encourage people to go see it, I mean it’s not exactly good.

Jeff: Lord no, not in the grand scheme of things. You don’t need to seek it out, but you don’t need to avoid it like the plague, which most sensible people probably would have based on the director, cast, premise and promotion.

Jeremiah: Yeah, so, like 6 out of 10?

Jeff: Sure.

Jeremiah: Officially earning it the Culture Blues stamp of Not As Bad As It Could Have Been. OK great. I gotta go get my feet done.

Jeff: A manicure is your hands, moron.

Jeremiah: Are you sure? Who cares. I’m out of here.

Jeremiah runs out of the office. Jeff turns to me.

Jeff: It’s obvious you’re not grasping the whole money thing. Go get my blackboard and chalk - the colored ones.

I wonder if Eddie Murphy would help me steal those.

Jeff: Let’s get didactic!

Tagged as: brett ratner thinks poor people are a minority, casey affleck is funny, surprisingly palatable, tower heist review