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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Tower Heist (Film)

by Belinda Hazleton | December 19, 2011 17:21 | Edited December 19, 2011 17:22

A mild-mannered but entertaining comedic heist caper largely boosted by its stellar cast, which includes a scene-stealing Eddie Murphy.

As far as Boxing Day releases go, this piece of mild-mannered fun and froth could be an ideal way to recover from the excesses of Christmas! There is nothing challenging, nothing offensive, and nothing much to think about in Tower Heist. Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) is the manager of a luxurious apartment block overlooking Central Park in New York. Believing that he has a solid working relationship with the building's billionaire penthouse resident, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), Josh is stunned when Shaw is arrested for stealing millions from his investors. Amongst those caught in the fraud are the blue collar workers at the "The Tower", who had given Shaw responsibility for their pensions.  Refusing to allow Shaw to get away with the crime, Josh hatches a plot to retrieve the missing funds. His co-conspirators include several other Tower employees; a petty criminal, Slide (Eddie Murphy), who has just been released from jail; and a failed Wall Street banker, Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick). Together, they mastermind a scheme to retrieve their lost money and make Shaw pay for his wrongdoing.

 

Not surprisingly, the plot is completely unlikely, and it borrows heavily from other films of the comedic-heist-caper subgenre. The pacing is uneven, with too much time spent on the heist itself, and not enough on the characters. But thanks to its stellar cast, Tower Heist is still entertaining and, occasionally, even very funny. Eddie Murphy is at his best, and steals every scene he's in. Unfortunately, he is under-used, as are several other members of the cast, such as Tea Leoni, who plays a tough-as-nails FBI agent with a soft spot for the underdog. As an aside, it is thought provoking to consider that Stiller and Murphy were reportedly paid almost as much for the film as the sum that their characters were trying to steal from the crooked tycoon...