Stealing my time.

Tower Heist @ Vintage Vista Cinema

The Movie: 1 of 5 Kernels.

This slick production with a cast of A-listers will leave you wishing for your time and money back.

The Pop: 4 of 5 Kernels

Popcorn (buttered) Diet Coke, plus store bought M&M’s.

The Film:

            Going into a Bret Ratner or Eddie Murphy (and sadly increasingly Ben Stiller) film you know you’re probably going to be disappointed. Even your low expectations won’t be met, but Tower Heist with its great cast, snappy trailer, and ripped from the headlines premise seemed worth a watch. Sure I knew this film wouldn’t change the world or even my view of cinema, but it was good for a few chuckles, right? Sadly the operative word is a few.

            The plot of the film revolves around a Building Manager, Josh, for the most upscale apartment in Manhattan. He’s great at his job, knows every tenant and their needs, plus runs his staff like a friendly dictator. When one of the buildings tenants, Artur Shaw, is found to have embezzled millions including the entire staff’s pension. Josh gets angry and ends up getting fired, so he and his brother enlist small time crook, Slide, to help them rob Shaw’s vault. Josh and his rag tag crew go about prepping for their heist while Slide puts them through their paces and teaches them to become robbers. Will their knowledge of the building and some can-do attitude be enough for these loveable losers to get the money and their justice?

            Of course it will, who cares, it’s a movie. I wouldn’t be so blasé about the movie’s rote typical ending if the screenwriters (or whomever is actually responsible for the finished script) had actually amused, entertained, or created palpable suspense on the way to the obligatory ending. This film also holds an odd distinction of doing a lot to set up characters and make them likable and interesting, but does almost nothing to make these characters change or evolve. So the whole film becomes about plot and how these characters are gonna pull off this heist, so you’d think that portion of the film would be airtight, but no. The plotting gets sloppy and sloppier as it heads into it’s third act. The filmmakers seem to be shrugging at this point, figuring that you haven’t walked out yet, you’re not gonna wait an hour into the movie to do so.

            Now its unfair to say the film was unbearable or unfunny. There are occasional chuckles and the movie keeps its pace up, charging towards it ending. However the film just shows disregard for the intellect of the audience. It’s odd for a film to spend so much time on set up and not spend time getting us emotionally involved with the characters and rooting for them to over come their obstacles. Its not that this film is bad as that it’s exceedingly mediocre and a waste of time for both the audience and the cast.

            I could go on dissecting this film’s failure to meet its promise. How Bret Ratner has become nothing more then a paycheck director who should focus on producing. The point really is DON’T SEE THS PIECE OF CRAP.  The film doesn’t offend or bore (completely) it just takes no risks and lacks the cohesion a heist film needs.

The Corn:

Vista’s goodness, was a little dry, but the film was boring enough that I didn’t’ worry about going to get an extra squirt of butter. Another nice thing about this theatre being a single theatre is that you can still hear the movie when you go to the lobby.