Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) is the manager of one of the most luxurious apartment buildings in New York. No detail goes unnoticed, under his watchful eye when it comes to running the high priced residential tower, that he is responsible for. One of the buildings wealthiest occupants, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), who lives in the penthouse, has just been accused of stealing over two billion dollars from investors who have put their money in his trust. Josh finds out about the alleged ponzi scheme and must break the bad news to his staff that he had invested their pension plans, along with his own saved money, into Shaw’s investments and that they have now lost all of their money. Feeling responsible for the lost of their savings, Josh decides he is going to break into Shaw’s apartment to search for where he might have hid some of the money. Along with some of his workers, Josh incorporates the help of child hood friend and longtime criminal, Slide (Eddie Murphy), to help him find a safe that he believes Shaw has hidden millions of dollars in. They only have two days to pull off the heist, as it seems that Shaw is about to get away with the perfect crime, as he is released from jail and put on house arrest. Now that Shaw is back in his apartment and being guarded by FBI agents, how will they be able to pull off their concocted scheme? One thing that Josh and his staff have going for them is the fact that they know the buildings lay-out, better than anyone. It will be a race against time to pull off such a huge crime, but Josh believes it will be worth it, as he guarantees his staff that he will do whatever it takes to get their life savings back, with interest.
Now before I start my review of this movie, let me first say that this past Tuesday, the hip hop world lost and well known rapper turned actor. Dwight “Heavy D†Myers died this week and he will surely be missed. He has a small part in this movie and it was very sad to have just seen him on the big screen and then for him to pass away just days after its release. So my condolences go out to the family and friends of “Heavy Dâ€, may he Rest in Peace. Now as far as this movie goes, it wasn’t what I expected. I was happy to see that Eddie Murphy was going back to his fast talking character portrayal, which shot him to fame in movies such as 48 Hours and Trading Places. This was the Eddie Murphy that people fell in love with back in the days. Then he got into a lot of Disney films, and kind of lost his core audience. Now when I saw him being the Murphy of old, it just seemed out of sync, and forced. Not to say that he didn’t have some funny lines in this movie, but he just seemed too old for the street character now. Maybe he has to work himself back into it, who knows? All I know is this movie wasn’t that funny. Ben Stiller is Ben Stiller. He’s funny at times and not so funny a lot of other times, it’s a hit or miss when it comes to his comedic acting, and this time it was a miss. I just didn’t think the pairing of the two actors worked in this movie. They both seemed like they were forcing themselves to make this movie funny.
This movie also had an odd cast of co-stars. Casey Affleck was a non-factor as far as being funny. Gabourey Sidibe, portrayed a West Indian character, and her accent kind of got on my nerves, after the first couple of scenes. Then there was the invasion of actors who haven’t been on the big screen in quite some time, starting with Matthew Broderick. It was so hard to look at Matthew and remember that this was the guy from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He’s now a little cubby, and has grey hair. Not that his appearance had anything to do with his acting abilities, he just seemed out of place and none funny. Then there was the appearance of two TV legends Alan Alda and Judd Hirsch. It was good to see them back acting, but not for this movie, neither one brought anything special to their roles. Tea Leoni is also in this film, and although she is still cute, after all these years, she was also not that exceptional in her role. Now I can’t blame the actors for this movie not being funny, that goes to the people who wrote the script. This movie seemed like it was written in a couple of hours. The plot was good, but the execution of said plot was anything but. First of all the way they did this heist was way too farfetched. Someone in the writing department should have stood up and said there’s NO way this could be pulled off. Then the movie moved so fast, there was barely anytime for character build up. This film just wasn’t what it could have been. I gave this movie 1 ½ stars out of 4. The two or three laughs that I did get from this film just weren’t worth the price of my admission. The film runs 1 hour and 45 mins, and its rated PG-13 for language and sexual content. It was written by Ted Griffin, Jeff Nathanson, Adam Cooper, and Bill Collage. It was directed by Brett Ratner. The film was produced by Imagine Entertainment.
Whoever thought that a movie could become a ponzi scheme within itself? – Ezo
Next week’s review: The Immortals
