And his coworkers - maids and elevator operators, doormen and concierges, played in key roles by Michael Peña ( The Lincoln Lawyer, Battle: Los Angeles), Gabourey Sidibe ( Precious), and Casey Affleck ( The Killer Inside Me, Gone Baby Gone) - are treated by the film with a frankly shocking level of respect, even when it comes to their silly quirks played for laughs. I couldn’t believe it as I was watching: I found myself feeling genuine sympathy for Ben Stiller’s smoothly competent building manager, because he is not a caricature, and he’s certainly not the Ben Stiller Cartoon Punching Bag he’s taken to playing in too many movies. Throw in Ben Stiller ( Little Fockers, Megamind) and Eddie Murphy ( Shrek Forever After, Imagine That), neither of whom have good track records with live-action studio comedies lately, and it sounds like a recipe for idiotic disaster.Īnd yet it works. When the working-class schmoes who keep a ritzy Manhattan residential building running efficiently discover they’ve been defrauded out of their pensions by one of the residents, a Wall Street sleaze they should never have trusted with their very hard-earned money, they decide to rob him of his millions as literal payback. Of course Tower Heist is goofy high-concept: the title alone makes it sound like a parody of itself. (I’ll pretend I don’t know he is credited on Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3.) Also credited are Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, who wrote the underappreciated sly college comedy Accepted, which similarly demonstrates that goofy high-concept movies don’t have to be stupid to be satisfying. As are hints of his cowriter Jeff Nathanson’s Catch Me If You Can. The flavor of Ted Griffin’s early work - for marvelous films such as Ocean’s Eleven and Best Laid Plans - is all over this. Kudos, honestly, to Ratner for stepping back and letting the smart script - instead of his cinematic spite - take center stage. But I’m happy to admit that in this case, Ratner has made a good film. I can’t say I’m a convert to Ratner, for whom the term fauxteur was coined, and rightly so. Ratner tempts one to say nice things about Michael Bay, who at least has a discernible point of view, if a demented and reprehensible one. His movies have been the multiplex equivalent of a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum. His X-Men: The Last Stand is damn near unwatchable. His Rush Hour movies are some of the worst examples of revolting modern minstrel shows and incoherent action. To say that I am not a fan of director Brett Ratner is an understatement of the highest degree. But one of those few is discovering that a film that you were expecting to hate - a movie that you had no doubts whatsoever would turn out to be utterly awful - turns out to be wonderful. For a film critic, there are few pleasures more satisfying than ripping into a bad movie.
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