Movie Review: The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

Genre: Raunchy Comedy  

Directors: Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly   
Starring: Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman, Michelle Monaghan, Jerry Stiller  
Running Time: 116 minutes  

Synopsis: In San Francisco, 40 year-old store owner Eddie (Ben Stiller) is feeling the pressure to get married from his father Doc (Jerry Stiller) and best buddy Mac (Rob Corddry). On a whim, Eddie marries environmental researcher Lila (Malin Akerman) just 6 weeks after meeting her. Once in Los Cabos, Mexico, on their honeymoon, their incompatibilities become apparent, and Eddie finds himself irresistibly attracted to Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), who is staying at the same resort with her extended family.

What Works Well: The dogged determination to avoid all cliches at all costs can only be applauded, and this no-limits romance ensures bad behaviour is the norm and always rewarded with bad outcomes. Eddie's often hilarious misadventures cascade into a disaster, Ben Stiller's sidelined-by-life persona perfect for a man who makes all the wrong decisions with the worst possible timing. A game Malin Akerman contributes plenty of ditzy energy on the receiving end of most of the laughs. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The level of vulgarity is off the charts, and a few attempted jokes push hard enough to tear the envelope. And under any normal circumstances, the seemingly classy Miranda would have never looked twice at Eddie.

Key Quote:

Lila: I'm Mrs. Edmond Cantrow.

Eddie: Edward.

Lila: Edward? You didn't tell me that!

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Movie Review: Reality Bites (1994)

A life-after-college drama, Reality Bites grapples with friendship, romance and the travails of adulthood. The challenge of pursuing dreams gradually gives way to a bland romantic triangle.

In Houston, a group of college friends venture into the real world. Class valedictorian Lelaina (Winona Ryder) is an aspiring documentarian and is filming the lives of her friends Troy, Vickie and Sammy. Handsome musician Troy carries a too-cool attitude and a perpetual cigarette but is happy to generally do nothing. Vickie (Janeane Garofalo) is terrified of commitment, sleeping with a different stranger every night while working at The Gap. Sammy is gay but has not yet come out to his parents.

Navigating adulthood gets harder when Lelaina is fired from her job as an intern on a cheesy morning television show and Troy is fired from his twelfth menial job. Vickie is promoted to store manager, but has a health scare. Lelaina meets television producer Michael (Ben Stiller) and they start a relationship, but she always harboured a crush on Troy, and now finds herself torn between a stable boyfriend and a dreamy but shiftless hunk.

A companion piece to 1992's Singles, Reality Bites tracks members of Generation X as they step out of their cocoons. Written by Helen Childress and directed by Stiller, the stories of Lelaina, Troy, Vickie and to a lesser extent Sammy check off all the expected themes: student debt, the difficulty of landing a job with no experience, the monthly drama of paying rent, the dilemma between striving for a dream or settling for what's available, and the mortal fear of turning into their parents.

Of course every generation faces similar tests, but Childress and Stiller tease out some Gen X specifics, including the broken homes they all come from. Lelaina possesses the self confidence and fortitude to at least try and stick to her vision, in terms of both career and artistry. Troy's deeply ingrained idealism mixes with cynicism to translate into an overriding sense of ennui. Vickie embraces her McJob but fences with relationship insecurities and the lingering threat of the disease of the 1980s. Finally, and to the detriment of the character's prominence, Sammy's sexuality is a non-issue among his friends.

In the first two acts Childress maintains a fine balance between empathizing with her protagonists and rolling her eyes, despite Stiller the director leaning too heavily on montages and a choppy, overstuffed soundtrack. But the ideas run out in the final third, and Reality Bites devolves into traditional love triangle territory, Lelaina caught between the grounded Michael and floaty Troy. Here the narrative unravels, Troy never demonstrating even the promise of any future redeeming values as a worthy partner.

Winona Ryder brings her full sparkle to Lelaina even if at times she is too perky. Ethan Hawke is the other stand-out performer, convincingly creating in Troy a character who probably peaked in high school. Faced with a biting reality, some bite back while others just sulk and lick their wounds.



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Movie Review: Tropic Thunder (2008)

A satire about actors and their rampant self-admiration, Tropic Thunder is vulgar, bloody and hilarious.

Five actors are part of an expensive crew on location to shoot Tropic Thunder, a Vietnam war epic based on the memoirs of veteran Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte).

• Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) is a fading action movie star with one last chance to salvage a career. 
• Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) is a low-brow comedian and heroin addict looking for respect. 
• Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) is an award-winning method actor who has undergone revolutionary skin darkening surgery to play a black soldier. 
• Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) is a rapper and energy drink promoter attempting to launch an acting career.  
• Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) is a relatively new actor, and the only one who has bothered to read the book or the script.

The director is Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan), and he has trouble keeping all the egos in check. Cody (Danny McBride) is the explosives expert, and thanks to Cockburn incompetence detonates a massive explosion when the cameras are not rolling. Back in Hollywood, Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey) is Tugg's agent, keen to ensure his star has what he needs to survive the jungle ordeal, while studio boss Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) is worried about his investment.

To toughen up the actors Cockburn agrees with Tayback's suggestion to drop them deep in the jungle with no support and film with hidden cameras. But the chosen location is in the Golden Triangle, where the vicious Flaming Gang runs a heroine operation. As the actors wander into the danger zone, Tugg still believes they are filming a movie, but Kirk starts to suspect something is very wrong.

An almost miraculous combination of action, comedy, gore and satire, Tropic Thunder grabs a movie-within-a-movie premise and squeezes hard. Director Ben Stiller wrote the screenplay with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen, and they take direct aim at directors, producers and agents within their own industry, but skewer actors with particular venom.

And the film is a spectacular spoof made successful thanks to relatively sharp writing and a terrific cast in top form. Robert Downey Jr. stands out and deserves credit for taking a potentially disastrous blackface construct and selling it as the epitome of method acting. His Kirk Lazarus stays in characters no matter what is happening in the jungle, spouting inane lines about performance art and scoring the film's biggest laughs.

The other unforgettable role is Tom Cruise as producer Les Grossman, screaming scatalogical threats down phone lines and then pulling off legendary dance movies while concocting an evil plan to turn a turkey into a monetary windfall.

Tropic Thunder also features surprisingly effective action scenes, and in classic war movie fashion these are interspersed with character interactions to build up depth. The conversations are often debates as to whether the stranded actors are in a real or make-believe conflict zone, and the surreal topic provides a suitably ridiculous basis to tease out the various personalities, often wracked with deep-seated insecurities or on the verge of full-out panic.

The humour is a combination of lewd, cringy and disgusting with a large dollop of severed body parts, and remarkably, most of it works.

Equal parts obnoxious and fearless, Tropic Thunder is a preposterous explosion.

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Movie Review: There's Something About Mary (1998)

A raunchy comedy, There's Something About Mary aims for wild over-the-top laughs and remarkably hits the target more often than not.

It's 1985 in Rhode Island, and awkward high school student Ted (Ben Stiller) secures a prom date with the seemingly unattainable dream classmate Mary (Cameron Diaz). But the big night is scuttled by an embarrassing zipper mishap. Thirteen years later, Ted decides to try and find Mary, and  encouraged by his friend Dom (Chris Elliott) hires sleazy insurance investigator Pat (Matt Dillon) who promptly locates her in Miami.

Mary is now a successful orthopedic surgeon, a sports lover and still single. Pat falls in love with his surveillance target and pursues her romantically, pretending to be a free-spirited architect. Mary's friend Tucker (Lee Evans) also harbours a crush and senses Pat's lies. Eventually Ted and Dom also make their way to Miami where Mary will find herself surrounded by numerous men professing their love.

Two epic scenes of abject raunchiness ensure the lasting notoriety of There's Something About Mary. The first is the prom night zipper fiasco at Mary's home, a scene as funny as it is physically uncomfortable for half the world's population. The second occurs when Ted and Mary finally have their reunion, and involves bodily fluids showing up in all the wrong places. Both sequences burst through any notional limits of decency, but land with hilarity intact and in the process define new limits of bawdiness.

Co-written and directed by brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the film takes big swings at the conventions of both the high school teenage comedy and romantic comedies. The first act features Stiller and Diaz made up to look like teenaged versions of themselves, and lays the groundwork for a lifetime of infatuation. Young Ted is a living example of a painfully uncoordinated high school persona, and the luminous young Mary is the too-good-to-be-true new school arrivee who is believed to be elusive but is actually surprisingly empathetic.

The rest of the movie occurs in the present day and thrives on shredding the misunderstandings, pets, neighbors, best friends and rivals that collectively create the foundational elements of any rom-com. The Farrellys' motto is to push bad taste as far as it goes and then a bit more, and they intentionally veer off-course in many scenes, including actively seeking laughs at the expense of Tucker's physical challenge in using crutches.

For anything about There's Something About Mary to function, the ultimate fantasy woman as imagined by juvenile males has to be created, and the Farrellys hit the jackpot with Cameron Diaz. She brings to life a dream combination of the sexy, approachable, sports-and-beer loving gal who happens to be professionally successful, single, charitable, and dedicated to helping her mentally challenged brother. She is more than a bit naive to fall for creeps and not be aware of the impact she has on men, but Cameron thrives in radiating the character's energy at the epicenter of the film.

Stiller as the adult Ted is a relatively reserved presence, and it is Matt Dillon as the sleazoid Pat who bursts through with a memorably off-center performance, combining stalker behaviour with carefully constructed manipulation.

A milestone in coarse humour, There's Something About Mary is supremely good when it's very bad.

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Movie Review: Brad's Status (2017)

A middle age crisis drama, Brad's Status explores issues of deep seated insecurity through the story of a father accompanying his son on a trip to assess college options.

In Sacramento, Brad Sloan (Ben Stiller) is well into middle age, and sure that he has been an underachiever in life. He runs a small non-profit agency, is married to government worker Melanie (Jenna Fischer), and their son Troy (Austin Abrams) is a budding musician and about to graduate from high school.

But Brad constantly compares his relative lack of success to the perceived wealth, fame and happiness achieved by his college friends Craig (Michael Sheen), Jason (Luke Wilson) and Billy (Jermaine Clement). Craig worked at the White House and is now an in-demand best-selling author and television political pundit. Jason built enormous wealth running a hedge fund, and Billy retired early to a life of leisure in the Caribbean after selling his technology firm.

Brad accompanies Troy to Boston for a college tour, and learns that Troy has a realistic chance of being accepted to Harvard. His burst of pride is punctured when a date mix-up results in Troy missing his interview. Brad struggles to decide whether or not to call upon Craig to pull some strings and open the right doors for Troy, and as the trip progresses he reassesses his life and the complex relationship with his past friends.

Brad's Status is over-narrated and ploughs familiar terrain related to keeping up with the Joneses, the grass always appearing greener on the other side of the fence, and the creeping realization that life's back-half is a plateau if not a downward spiral of mediocrity. Yet in the hands of writer and director Mike White, the film is a worthwhile journey into the stressed mind of a father flirting with depression.

Brad has built up his college friends' lives into some sort of wart-free utopia, all of them successful beyond imagination, leaving him as the only group member wallowing in middle class oblivion. And now his perceived failure means he is no longer invited to their social gatherings, whereas in the past he was the glue holding the crew together. The film avoids hammering the role social media plays in inflating insecurities, but the message is unmistakable.

Brad enjoys the luxury of a stable marriage with the terrifically supportive Melanie, runs his own meaningful business promoting good causes, and his son is well adjusted and may be musically gifted enough to gain admission to a top college. Instead of celebrating his achievements Brad emotionally flounders by measuring his life short against others. White prominently exposes Brad's sour attitude and negative outlook as his biggest obstacle, and does not shy away from presenting immaturity and self-directed degradation as harmful fuel for angst.

Within the prevailing sense of emotional gloom the trip to Boston serves to build a bond between father and son. Brad has clearly neglected to care much about Troy's progress, and in his eagerness to catch up he defaults to many ill-advised moves, often saying and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Troy remains impressively patient, poking back at his dad when needed but generally helping his father awaken to the world of young adults by being true to himself, a trait obviously inherited from his well-grounded mother.

The trip also provides unexpected opportunities for Brad to get back in touch with his college buddies, especially celebrity author Craig. A closer look at his friends' lives reveals all is not what it seems, and again White makes Brad real: knowingly or not he holds on tight to his resentment, botching more than one opportunity to rebuild meaningful connections.

Ben Stiller is in his comfort zone portraying an average man wrestling with restlessness, and Austin Abrams is equally impressive as a son refreshingly free of irony fluttering his way out of the nest.

Brad's Status is middling. He has more than he knows, but knowing is a big part of thriving.

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Movie Review: Greenberg (2010)

A drama and romance with some comic elements, Greenberg focuses on quirkiness caused by mental issues but is hampered by a lack of cohesion and an unconvincing romance.

Phillip Greenberg (Chris Messina) and his family use twentysomething and single Florence (Greta Gerwig) as a personal assistant, nanny and sitter to their dog Mahler. The Greenbergs depart to a multi-week vacation in Vietnam, leaving Florence in charge, although Phillip's undependable brother Roger (Ben Stiller) arrives from New York to stay at the empty house. Roger has just been released from hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown, and is intent on doing nothing for a while.

Roger and Florence are both lonely, meet at the house, and start exploring a relationship. Roger also reconnects with his old bandmate Ivan (Rhys Ifans), who is going through as trial separation from his wife, and Ruth (Jennifer Jason Leigh), an ex-girlfriend. Eric (Mark Duplass), another former bandmate, is still angry at Roger for botching a record deal 15 years prior. The dog Mahler suffers a serious illness, forcing Roger and Florence to spend more time together, but his erratic behaviour and mood swings are difficult to tolerate.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, Greenberg is a choppy experience. The initial focus on Florence works well, but Baumbach wants to tell the story of Roger, and the film quickly runs into trouble when the focus shifts. Whether due to his nervous breakdown or just his foul personality, Roger is shiftless, aimless, undependable, and temperamental, and it's difficult to see what Florence or anyone else would see in him to prompt a desire to have a relationship.

In the absence of a rational romance Greenberg offers precious little else. Roger's strained relationship with his former bandmates is promising context but the same conversation is repeated three times, and the health issues of the dog Mahler consume inordinate screen time as an excuse for Roger, who does not drive, to keep on calling Florence. Her excessive helpfulness and inability to ever stand up for herself is frustrating, but also the one explanation offered as to why she keeps accommodating his mood swings.

Greta Gerwig is far and away the the best thing in the movie as a free spirited woman starting to wonder if the prime of her life is slipping away, and Greenberg suffers most in its second half when Florence is absent for long stretches. Ben Stiller does little other than push moody button.

Greenberg aims for idiosyncratic, but stumbles into obnoxious.

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Movie Review: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

A comedy about family and dashed dreams, The Royal Tenenbaums introduces plenty of peculiar characters but drowns them in uninspiring incompetence.

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) separates from his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston), shocking their three young kids Chas, Richie and the adopted Margot. Each of the children possesses genius talent: Chas in business, Richie in tennis and Margot in writing. Meanwhile, Richie's best friend Eli spends all his hours with the Tenenbaums.

Twenty two years later a financially broke but still upbeat Royal learns that Etheline may be falling in love with her accountant Henry (Danny Glover), and reappears at the family home to try and win back her love and make amends with the children.

The now-grown kids are not doing so well. Richie (Luke Wilson) is a has-been tennis prodigy after suffering an on-court meltdown during a competitive match; Chas (Ben Stiller) has become paranoid after losing his wife in a fire, and the still morose Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) is stuck in a miserable marriage with Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray), and having an affair with Eli (Owen Wilson).

Directed by Wes Anderson and exquisitely photographed by Robert Yeoman, The Royal Tenenbaums features character quantity and compositional splendour but not narrative quality. While the film exhibits all the typical Anderson quirkiness, the various plot threads never weave together, and the story idles rather than thrives.

The opening is promising, and the emerging potential of genius kids offers no shortage of possibilities. But after the time jump the children emerge as adults who never blossomed, and The Royal Tenenbaums has nowhere to go. Despite a game cast there is limited enjoyment to be found in watching multiple wasted lives weighed down by the luggage of broken hearts, decades-long grudges, neglect and unmet expectations, but this is where the film resides, and no amount of attempted dry humour can save it.

The script lacks a cutting edge, the dialogue is listless, and the characters range from boring to irritating, with none likeable. Attempts to inject some drama and humour include two men (other than her husband) in love with Margot, a suicide attempt, and a brief Benny Hill-style madcap chase. None succeed in enlivening proceedings.

The cast members pose rather than act, in typical Anderson fashion precise symmetrical scene composition more important than individual showiness. The Royal Tenenbaums is always intriguing to look at, but more as a series of paintings than an engaging movie.

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Movie Review: Zoolander (2001)

A sharp no holds barred satire of the fashion world, Zoolander is a wild ride through a haughty industry.

When Malaysia's newly elected President promises reforms to end cheap child labour in the garment industry, the evil barons of the fashion world are sent into a panic. Top designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) is tasked with plotting an assassination of the President. He identifies none-too-bright top fashion model Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), who works for a model agency run by Maury Ballstein (Jerry Stiller), as the perfect sap to be unwittingly recruited as an assassin.

Unfortunately, Zoolander, despite his famous Blue Steel "look" and miniature cell phone, is plunged into a personal crisis of confidence when reporter Matilda (Christine Taylor) publishes an unflattering profile in Time magazine and then he loses his model-of-the-year crown to the much-too-cool Hansel (Owen Wilson). This does not stop Mugatu and his top henchwoman Katinka Ingabogovinanana (Milla Jovovich) from launching their plan to brainwash Zoolander and turn him into a martial arts assassin to the tune of Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Co-written and directed by Ben Stiller, Zoolander is successful at drawing good and sustained laughs out of abject stupidity. Stiller sharpens his knives and does not try to be respectful. This is an all out assault on stupid models, corrupt business owners, and laughable designers, and the film mercilessly pokes away at the parties, the prancing, and the attitudes. The only rational character in the entire movie is the reporter Matilda, and she acts as the outside observer lifting the lid on the vacuous, corrupt and exploitive underpinnings of the industry.

The highlights are many. Zoolander and Hansel engage in a walk-off duel, a melange of boxing bout and showdown at high noon judged by none other than David Bowie. The brainwashing scene featuring psychedelic Mugatu images is a classic riff on The Manchurian Candidate. And the conspiratorial contribution of hand model Prewett (David Duchovny) gives the assassination plot and the broader fictional history of the fashion industry's involvement in high profile deaths pop culture legitimacy. Stiller even finds time within the 89 minutes of running length for a "going home" sojourn to the "coal mines of New Jersey", where Stiller reconnects with his roots including dad Larry (Jon Voight).

Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell find the perfect material to complement their madcap brand of improvisation-rich comedy, and they all deliver. Stiller infuses enough naive self-doubt into the Zoolander character to make him an appealing central figure, while Hansel's effortless ability to exude chill domination is flawlessly matched to Wilson's persona.

Ferrell is liberated by wild makeup and lets loose as the out-there designer Mugatu. His launch of the homeless-inspired Derelicte line is not only a sharp jab at the fashion world's lack of ethics, but also sadly inspired by a real campaign. Zoolander spots the weaknesses in its target trade, and attacks with ferocity and a devious smile.

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Movie Review: While We're Young (2014)

A dramatic comedy about generational gaps, While We're Young starts with strong ideas but meanders into mundane territory in search of bogus conflict.

Josh and Cornelia (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) are a childless couple drifting into middle age, and losing touch with their lifelong friends who are now all preoccupied with children. Josh is a documentary filmmaker with a bright future behind him, and his latest project is an incomprehensible sociological treatise 10 years in the making and still unfinished. Cornelia is getting tired of her husband's ineptitude and carries guilt feelings about her inability to conceive. Her dad Leslie (Charles Grodin) helped Josh early in his career, but now believes his son-in-law has failed to fulfill his potential.

Josh and Cornelia meet the much younger hipster couple Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Jamie is also an aspiring documentarian and full of admiration for Josh's early work. The two couples start to socialize, and Josh and Cornelia get a boost of energy from their new younger friends. Jamie launches a new film project to record in-person meetings with social media friends, and Josh is happy to collaborate. But a hallucinogenic episode between Cornelia and Jamie causes stress, and all relationships begin to unravel when Leslie secures financial support for Jamie's project while dismissing Josh's appeals for help.

Directed and written by Noah Baumbach, While We're Young works well as a sly commentary on the differences between Generation X and the Millennials. The first half of the film benefits from the sense of discovery experienced by Josh and Cornelia as their creativity, fitness and sex drives are all kick started after interacting with the younger, cooler and seemingly less complicated Jamie and Darby.

And there is plenty of true irony and opportunities for humour sprinkled into the dynamic between the couples, the hipsters full of admiration for the music (vinyl), technology (turntables), fitness classes and achievements (Josh's first documentary) somehow left behind by the previous generation.

But Baumbach hits a creative wall heading into the second half of his film, and the narrative stalls. The story of competing documentarians is simply not that interesting, with the subject matter of both projects particularly dreary. Jamie is revealed to be potentially less than pure in his intentions and just as capable as any other young man to bend artistic rules in favour of his career. This sets Josh off on a Quixotic quest for vindication, an overreaction that serves to prove his stunted stature. All the pokey back and forth is sophomoric and empties the charm out of the film.

The four central performers enjoy themselves, Stiller playing mostly within himself, Watts emerging with the most credit, while Driver and Seyfried capture the friendly but detached cool of hipsterdom.

While We're Young is fun for a while, but grows old quickly.

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Movie Review: Starsky And Hutch (2004)

A comedy action film, Starsky And Hutch attempts to both satirize and pay homage to the 1970s television police show. Instead it errs on the side of stupidity and dissolves into a puddle of irrelevance.

It's 1975 in Bay City. Detective David Starsky (Ben Stiller) is an intense officer, overzealously chasing after every last petty thief. Captain Doby (Fred Williamson) is exasperated by Starsky's inability to work with others, and partners him with Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson (Owen Wilson), an officer so laid back he mingles with criminals and sometimes joins them on heists for fun. Hutch maintains Huggy Bear Brown (Snoop Dogg) as an underworld contact.

Drug lord Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn) and his second-in-command Kevin Jutsum (Jason Bateman) are planning a major drug deal involving undetectable cocaine, modified to smell like sugar. Reese mingles in high society, owns a fancy yacht, and tries to pretend that he is an upstanding family man. But when one of Reece's henchmen shows up dead face down in the river, Starsky and Hutch get on the case and start to close in on Reese's operations.

A film which is essentially entirely forgotten a few minutes after the credits roll, Starsky And Hutch consists of an endless series of mind numbingly bad set-pieces, aiming for funny but achieving crass. See Starsky and Hutch dress up like the guys from Easy Rider for an aborted scene at a biker bar. Crack up laughing as Starsky and Hutch pretend to be mimes as they infiltrate a Bat Mitzvah. Be enthralled as Starsky chases a thief across rooftops. Laugh out loud at Huggy Bear pretending to be a golf caddy. Guffaw as Starsky unknowingly get high on cocaine and engages in a satirical disco dancing duel that was old in 1980.

Or better yet, don't. As directed by Todd Phillips, the film offers nothing beyond the obvious, the churlish and the vulgar, with the personalities of Starsky and Hutch more much more fingernails-on-chalkboard grating than funny. The film reaches an absolute low in a prison visit scene, with an uncredited Will Ferrell registering a personal career worst as an inmate who demands that the two detectives act out sexual fetishes.

In a minor role, Juliette Lewis is wasted, while Amy Smart and Carmen Electra show up to fulfill every immature boy's cheerleader fantasy.

The bright spots? It's good to see 1970s action stalwart Fred Williamson as the constantly irritated Captain Doby. And the real Starsky and Hutch, namely Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul, show up for a late cameo. Incredible as it may seem, the 2004 version of Starsky And Hutch makes the bad acting and bad television from three decades past appear stellar.

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The Movies Of Ben Stiller

All movies starring Ben Stiller and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Empire Of The Sun (1987)

Reality Bites (1994, also Director)

The Cable Guy (1996, also Director)

There's Something About Mary (1998)

Meet The Parents (2000)

Zoolander (2001, also Director)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Along Came Polly (2004)

Starsky And Hutch (2004)

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

Tropic Thunder (2008, also Director)

Greenberg (2010)

Tower Heist (2011)

The Muppets (2011, cameo)

While We're Young (2014)

Brad's Status (2017)

Locked Down (2021)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Tower Heist (2011)

A rather bland revenge caper comedy thriller, Tower Heist assembles a large cast and then wastes it on an underdeveloped story. There are moments of fun to be had thanks to the star power on display, but the overall package is a disappointment.

In downtown Manhattan, Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) is the manager of The Tower, the most prestigious high rise residential address in the city. His crew includes veteran doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson), the tentative desk clerk Charlie (Casey Affleck), housemaid Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe) and rookie elevator operator Enrique (Michael Peña). They all work for General Manager Mr. Simon (Judd Hirsch), looking after every need of the very rich tenants.

The most famous and wealthiest resident is billionaire Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), an investment fund manager who occupies the lavish penthouse, complete with Steve McQueen's bright red Ferrari as a centrepiece decoration. Without warning, Shaw is arrested for stealing $2 billion. Kovaks and his team had all their pension money invested with Shaw, and they lose everything. With FBI agent Claire Denham (Téa Leoni) leading the investigation into Shaw's business dealings, Kovaks assembles his colleagues as well as bankrupt Wall Street investor Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) and common criminal Slide (Eddie Murphy) to plan a daring theft of Shaw's secret safe, located in a wall enclosure within the penthouse.

Tower Heist has shiny outside packaging, but a listless core. The film looks slick and sounds great, the bass-and-horns theme courtesy of Christophe Beck packing plenty of promise. The talented array of stars do their part to help make the experience half-way watchable. Stiller throws himself into the role and manufactures a decent level of conviction, while Broderick hits the better comic tones with a brooding turn as an investor chewed up and spit out by Wall Street's merciless carousel.

Murphy is in good crude form, recalling the edgy, urban and profane Murphy of old as the one true thief among wannabe crooks, although his scrappy street-level experience is ill-suited to a high-rise heist. Alda (finding his inner Bernie Madoff), Affleck, Peña, Leoni, Sidibe and Hirsch ensure that every corner of the tower is occupied by familiar faces.

With most of the budget invested in the cast and the needlessly complicated backdrop of the Thanksgiving parade, little is left for a decent script, and Tower Heist quickly falls apart. The break-in plan is half-baked to the point of emerging from the oven as a sloppy mess, and the attempts at generating some heat between Josh and Claire misfire, although Leoni sparkles in one scene where the FBI agent disappears behind the fog of alcohol and the woman comes to the fore.

Once director Brett Ratner moves the action to the execution phase, all the tension gets caught up in that red Ferrari, and the film devolves into a single silly gag, over the top, outside the building and beyond the bounds of reason. Tower Heist gets stuck in the elevator, with great company but going nowhere.

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