Review of Tower Heist (2011) by Ben C — 18 May 2012

A comedy-lacking comedy generally does not perform well.

Tower Heist was a movie I personally believed would turn out to a be a good "buddy movie"--"Eddie Murphy can be one of the best comedians when on his "A-Game". Murphy did just that. Unfortunately, he was not given enough time on the screen, and for this reason primarily is why I give the movie a much lower rating. Josh Kovacs, played by Ben Stiller, was a mildy funny character, but it felt like Stiller played a bi-polar character that couldn't decide whether he wanted to be serious or funny. On a side-note, this movie had more obvious errors in the writing than does Lady Gaga with her outfits.

The movie opens well and ends fairly well, but the middle is where it was lacking. At times you thought the mid-plot was significant and important, and instead ended up being pointless and lacking humor, which leads me to my largest complaint: Tower Heist did not have enough punchlines. When they made jokes, they were generally funny, but parts of the movie were so dry and lacking jokes of any kind that you felt you were watching the World Series of Poker on ESPN. The worst part (and best), was that the best jokes weren't even jokes; They were simply the lines that the writers gave Eddie Murphy.

In short, Murphy put on a great but limited performance which hurt the quality of the movie dramatically. I felt like I was watching a soap opera with dry humor at times, and the plot just really didn't appeal to me as something entertaining or worth watching. Screenplay mistakes and limited Murphy screen-time aside, it provided enough cheesy entertainment to help me make it through the day. Overall, I'd give this movie a 2 out of 5 stars.