The second thing that’s wrong with Alda’s character is, if I remember correctly, early in the movie, there’s an entire scene where Alda hires a dude after Ben Stiller refuses to let him join his workforce of Darn Good Folk. ![]() You don’t cast Hawkeye as the villain - unless it’s Donald Sutherland in the upcoming Hunger Games movie, because let’s be honest, as lovable as Sutherland’s Hawkeye was, didn’t it always felt just a little sinister to have a Canadian actor playing one of our nation’s heroes?īut I digress. This is TV’s Hawkeye Pierce, for Christ’s sake. But there are two things wrong with this: first, they cast Alan Alda, who’s probably the most lovable actor of his generation (behind Alan Arkin). We’re told supposed to hate Alan Alda, because he stole a bunch of money and is kind of a dick sometimes. When George Clooney assembles his crack team, even those guys have basic relatable motives: Brad Pitt is bored and wants back in on some action Eliot Gould wants revenge for a personal slight Matt Damon wants to step beyond his father’s footsteps. In Tower Heist, the team is Ben Stiller, who gets fired because he smashes Alda’s car Matthew Broderick, who lost his condo because he didn’t pay his mortgage Eddie Murphy, who’s black and therefore “knows about crime.” What? I don’t want to compare the movie too much to Ocean’s Eleven, because it seems like an honor that Tower Heist doesn’t deserve, but the main motivation behind that film’s heist was a dude screwing over his ex-wife’s douchey new husband. Yeah, it sucks that a bunch of people lost money to Bernie Madoff - but is that really relatable? It’s a noble attempt at crafting emotional stakes, but what the filmmakers don’t realize is that none of us give a shit because not many of us really have pensions anyway. Soon afterwards, Stiller decides to steal $20 million from Alda’s penthouse so that he can give it to all his doggone-hard-workin’ employees. To explain the main motivation for the heist, we’re subjected to a pitiful scene where Ben Stiller - the building manager at a Trump Tower stand-in in New York’s Columbus Circle - has to explain to his staff of lovable blue-collar misfits that Alan Alda’s Madoff-esque shenanigans has sucked their pension funds dry. What made me so angry during the film is the utter disdain it seems to have for the audience. And what’s worse, the FBI Agent says, “Oh no! It was a diversion!” Don’t see it.ĭuring the climax of Tower Heist, a runaway van supposedly carts away the loot (an old Ferrari said to have once belonged to Steve McQueen, but is really made of solid gold - but more on that later), and the entire time you, as an intelligent, attentive audience member, are thinking “That van’s obviously empty this is boring.” But then the FBI pulls it over, and they open the back doors, and for a brief second you consider that this movie might do something interesting and show the car inside. There are spoilers here, but hey, by spoiling the movie I’m doing you a favor. I hated this movie so much that to list everything I hate about it would literally make me boil with rage again.Įddie Murphy and some friends who also "know a lot about crime," according to Tower Heist Look: I can handle a stupid movie, but it infuriates me when a stupid movie assumes that I am also stupid. The movie is so stupid that it’s condescending. At one point I started hitting myself in the face to dull the pain of what I was watching. You guys, I hated everything - everything - about Tower Heist. I love heist movies (well, I love Ocean’s Eleven, anyway) and I love comedies, so why not go see a dumb caper comedy while we’re all half-drunk? It’ll be stupid! It’ll be fun! So this weekend, I made a bunch of my adult friends go to the movies with me, and of course I chose Tower Heist. That was entertaining, but it was no trip to the movies. ![]() When I was five, I unwrapped my brand-new Stretch Armstrong and pulled on one arm while a friend pulled on the other, and, uh, I accidentally slung him through a glass cabinet window. One year, I went to a nearby parking lot to play football with my friends. I remember a friend’s mom taking us to see For Richer or Poorer for some reason, and for three years in a row, my friend Joe’s parents took us all to see the newest Lord of the Rings movie. As a kid, I never got to have the birthday party where we all went to the movies and threw popcorn at each other.
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