This star-studded comedy about a high profile robbery couldn’t miss, right? It has Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, and Matthew Broderick, plus many other accomplished actors. Well even good actors can fall victim to bad movies.
This was the story of Josh Kovacs (Stiller) who manages one of the most elegant and expensive apartment high rises in New York City. The building is owned by Arthur Shaw (Alda) who is a Wall Street mogul and seems to be an all around nice guy that cares about his employees. That is until the FBI show up and try to arrest Shaw for some Ponzi scheme. Josh soon learns that all the employees pensions are gone including his. So he hatches a plan with his brother-in-law Charlie (Casey Affleck), new employee Enrique (Michael Pena) and a down on his luck, out of a job investment banker Mr. Fitzhugh (Broderick), to find Shaw’s hidden safe and rob him of his money right under FBI Agent Claire Denham’s (Tea Leoni) nose. They are not criminals so the need a criminal to help them plan out the robbery, so they get Kovacs’s neighbor Slide (Murphy) to help them out. They try to pull off the heist of the century with no experience and bickering among each other, the FBI breathing down their necks, and of course Shaw himself cleverly hiding his wealth.
This movie had so much potential, but never really came together. It was like they tried to be like “Ocean’s Eleven” but all the many different characters never really gel’ed as a cohesive team. That is what was supposed to make it funny, but it didn’t work. They took themselves too serious, and the comedy aspect of the movie really never blossomed. There were a few funny parts but over all not that funny. I mean you had Feris Bueller, The Beverly Hills Cop, and freakin Zoolander this should have been hilarious but it was a flop as a comedy. The planning they showed them doing was not in any way shape or form of how they really pull off the robbery. It was like chaotic amateur hour during planning and then when it went down they were like master mind geniuses, WTF? It just was not believable in any way. Plus there were just too many unnecessary characters that played small roles that really had nothing to do with the main part of the story. Glad they got a paycheck.
It was however a decent movie, it did have good moments of suspense and action and the story was pretty good. It was just not a great comedy. If it weren’t for all the stars in the movie that carried it, the film would have been a total failure. If you want a funny comedy don’t bother. If you want a mild suspense crime drama with comedic aspects then this is a pretty decent one.
I was just disappointed that it was not funnier, I almost gave this a 2 Beer rating because of it. However, it was an ok movie over all.
I give this movie 3 Beers.
I agree. It wasn’t a bad movie. It just wasn’t as good as I expected. It almost seemed as if it was shot in a hurry and the actors never really got into their characters and formed the chemistry that we expect from stars of their caliber.
Yep that is exactly right. It was a bit of a let down but not a terrible movie.
I liked this movie, but I agree that it could have been better. I wish they would have developed the characters a bit more.
Totally agree, it had the potential.