Tower Heist (2011)

Tower Heist is a good, but not a stellar, effort. Ben Stiller has shown more personality as the star of many other movies, while the rest of the cast performs passably, but could easily have been better. The movie flows well enough, but feels formulaic and paint-by-the-numbers, rather than ingenious or exciting. (The only edge-of-the-seat moments for me involved the highly improbable cable dangling and car wrangling at the top of the tower, and then finagling the elevators, particularly after we find out that the car weighs far more than one ton. It is also highly improbable that a delivery truck could speed, for some distance, straight through the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, before the driver is arrested without prejudice, chuckles, and passes off the stunt with a lame excuse.) Alan Alda is the unctuous and well-connected Ponzi scam man brought that Stiller and key employees want to bring down. I am glad to have seen the movie, but once is enough. For comparison, I give The Maiden Heist 4.5 stars, but Tower Heist 3.5 stars. (3-11-2017)