Tower Heist

Was incredibly disappointed by Brett Ratner's Tower Heist. Generic films don't have to be terrible. If their writers try to at least create four or five unexpected witty provocative scenes wherein something distracting takes place they can be salvaged. But they have to hold our attention before they can affectively destream it. Tower Heist presents one boring mundane predictable scene after another, as if they were trying to mimic the aesthetic built into a swiffer wet jet ad in order to peddle jokes that make television's Whitney seem hilarious by comparison. It was like the inspiration behind this script was vacuuming or cleaning behind the fridge. Unmitigated stubborn concrete tedium disseminated by performances who are only noteworthy because they managed to successfully convince me that they were taking their work seriously, regardless of the fact that they must of wretched upon first reading over the material. There's one moment where Matthew Broderick at least looks as if he's aware that he's starring in an cup into which you spit but it's subtle enough for him to still be able to convince the powers that be that he's a team player.

I like films wherein rich assholes who steal from struggling workers are punished and I like that this happens in Tower Heist, but the execution is uniformly lacking in skill, insight and perspicacity, and the plot, racist in structure.

Don't be sucked in by the cast or the ads. Tower Heist isn't worth it and reminds me why I haven't wanted to see an Eddie Murphy film since Bowfinger.

Fast Five

Fast cars, frenzied action, forlorn characters, and frenetic frictions make up Fast Five's feverish collisions as the duration of its franchise is significantly distended.

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his team of vehicular visionaries are on the run from both the law and a Brazilian gangster as familial responsibilities reconstitute their pursuit of happiness.

As if they're beyond good and evil.

They're not trying to rob from the rich and give to the poor, they're trying to heist around a hundred million and make a break for the sunset. They have the tools and possess the know-how; it's now just a matter of exceptional skill and impeccable timing.

Not to mention good buds and a wrought iron reputation.

The film's intense and fun to watch. There are many logical miscues but it is deeper than it appears on the surface.

For instance, Brazilian gangster Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) thinks he can control communities by providing them with lavish gifts. He provides the finances for projects and expects a high degree of subservience in return. After he places an enormous bounty on Dominic's head, you'd expect there to be at least one scene during which he encounters an agile opportunist, but this doesn't happen. Since the population is so used to Reyes's duplicity, no one trusts him unless they have to, and therefore no one seeks to betray Toretto.

Hence, at least some of the thought put into Fast Five wasn't geared towards stunts and getaways, and if you can get over the stock characters and sensational situations it's worth checking out. These films aren't really about employing more advanced rhetorical devices, their more advanced rhetorical devices are built into the ways in which they present more elaborate sensational situations, 'out-witting' what's taken place in their predecessors, and using a gangster's safe guarded by the police to smash up both the police and the gangster, well, that was a good idea.

But don't take my word for it.

The Maiden Heist

Wasn't too impressed with Peter Hewitt's The Maiden Heist. I rented it because I couldn't resist seeing a film starring Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman, and William H. Macy, and while they played their quirky typecast characters with the same seductive skills that have sustained their prolific careers, their acting couldn't overcome the lacklustre script as the film flounders during its second act. What's missing is a serious problem. Each of the aforementioned stars works as a museum security guard who has fetishized a particular work of art. Upon learning that their favourite pieces are to be transferred to an exhibit in Denmark, they concoct a plan to steal them. But while heisting, their plan goes off without a sensational hitch, leaving their audience slightly bored by the lack of substantial shock. The introduction's strong enough with a startling opening scene which showcases Walken's traditional mania, but as the plot slowly unravels, and the characters develop a stronger relationship with their favourite work of art than they do with each other, nothing unforeseen is introduced to ridiculously yet rationally complicate things, which results in a mediocre finish.