TOWER HEIST

This is a movie about a tower heist and it’s called Tower Heist. That alone should tell you everything you need to know about what to expect: straightforward, easy-to-digest fun.

Ben Stiller stars as Josh Kovacs, the manager of an exclusive condo tower in NYC, who runs a tight ship and who’s developed a friendship with one of the building’s wealthiest residents: a high-profile investor named Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). When Shaw is arrested on fraud charges and accused of swindling hundreds of millions of dollars from his clients – which include many of the condo’s blue-collar staff – Josh sets out to make things right and to recoup the life’s savings of his hardworking staff.

He enlists the aid of a few key players: concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck), new elevator operator Enrique (Michael Peña), recently evicted banker Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) and small-time petty thief Slide (Eddie Murphy), whom Josh hopes will lend some expertise to the operation. The goal? Steal $20 million from Shaw’s penthouse residence. The problem? The plan will have to be executed by this bumbling batch of inexperienced buddies.

Brisk and breezy, and directed by Brett Ratner, Tower Heist isn’t anything profound or inventive, and it doesn’t turn the genre on its ear. In fact, it follows a fairly cookie-cutter path with only a few unexpected little twists thrown in. It’s not hard to predict who will be victorious but, despite all those things, the story never feels dull and the film never really lags. It bounces along nicely, buoyed by its skilled ensemble cast, with more than a few laugh-out-loud moments and impressive stunts.

Stiller delivers his signature neurotic yuppie performance, and Murphy is perfectly cast as the shifty (but very funny) criminal advisor. The women – Téa Leoni, as an FBI agent, and Gabourey Sidibe, as an amorous maid – don’t fare as well as the fellas and don’t really have a whole lot to do. Sidibe seems especially miscast, with a terrible faux accent and line delivery that keeps waffling back and forth between sassy and enraged.

The real standouts are Affleck, as a cash-strapped soon-to-be father, who – like a young Charles Grodin – thinks the whole enterprise will end in tears, and Peña, whose enthusiasm for every single task he undertakes makes his character unexpectedly delightful.

Overall, Tower Heist is a timely action-comedy, given the Occupy (insert city) movements happening around the globe and the financial crises that continue to pop up, and one that provides its fair share of laughs. More importantly, and unlike so many big-screen films of this nature these days, those laughs don’t come as at the expense of anything mean-spirited or needlessly crass. That alone earns it bonus marks from me.