![]() Stillers day-to-day revolves around reassuring his brother-in-law and father to be Casey Affleck that hes doing a good job on the buildings front desk showing new elevator boy Michael Pena the ins and outs of the building lets dispense with a shedload of exposition in the most textbook style possible and buying former financial wiz Matthew Broderick a grace period before he is evicted its Stillers save the cat moment and sucking up the buildings most affluent tenant: charming wall street magnate and all-round nice guy Alan Alda. And who can blame him when he lives in a run-down slum of a neighbourhood and has the foul mouthed petty criminal Eddie Murphy as his neighbour who offers a daily dose of verbal abuse? I was under the impression a manager of such a prestigious apartment building would earn enough to not have to live in such a place but never mind. Ben Stiller plays diligent building manager Josh Kovacs universally loved by his colleagues and the residents of The Tower - the most prestigious building in Manhattan he is a man who lives to work. Murphy, in his first role since 2009, is in full Eddie Murphy mode, with comic riffs and astonished double takes.Rating: 3 Eddie Murphy finally returns to something near his former comedic best in this all-star ensemble, heist caper comedy, which also stars Ben Stiller, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Michael Pena, Tea Leone, Gabourey Sidibe and two golden oldies from TVs heyday Alan Alda and Judd Hirsch. Fitzhugh (Broderick), who is jobless, broke, has lost his family and being evicted from the building, and characters played by Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, Gabourey Sidibe (her second film since her Oscar nomination) as a Jamaican whose father would crack safes, and - well, Kovacs decides they need someone more familiar with crime and enlists Slide ( Eddie Murphy), a loud-talking dude from the street in his neighborhood. Obviously, this requires stealing the car from the penthouse, where there's no door or elevator that can handle it. ![]() They're looking for a wall safe, but then discover Shaw's Ferrari is solid gold: $65 million is hidden in plain sight. Enraged, Kovacs recruits a team to break into the apartment. ![]() So dear old Lester and all the others are penniless. The FBI is on the job because Shaw has been running a Ponzi scheme, and among his loot are the pension plan and investments of the tower's employees. It was taken apart piece by piece, he explains to FBI agent Claire Denham ( Tea Leoni), and assembled there. His most prized possession is a bright red 1953 Ferrari, once owned by Steve McQueen. The penthouse is owned by Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), a financial wheeler-dealer, whose walls display priceless modern art. His team works flawlessly, beginning with the beloved doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson). The story: Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) is the perfectionist building manager at the most luxurious condo skyscraper in New York, which providentially is on Columbus Circle, in the exact footprint of Trump Tower. It's funny in an innocent screwball kind of way. There is also the novelty that here is a comedy that doesn't go heavy on the excremental, the masturbatory and symphonies of four-letter words. It's the kind of story where the executives at a pitch meeting feel they're being bludgeoned over the head with box-office dollars. The movie is broad and clumsy, and the dialogue cannot be described as witty, but a kind of grandeur creeps into the screenplay by Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson.
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