Universal Pictures
Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy go for broke in the goofy revenge comedy "Tower Heist," directed by schlockmeister Brett Ratner.
"Tower Heist"
"Margin Call"
"Margin Call," a modestly budgeted drama that transforms a Manhattan investment bank tower into ground zero for the slow-motion big bang of the 2008 financial crisis, is one the best-reviewed movies of 2011.
It is "one of strongest American films of the year and easily the best Wall Street movie ever made," David Denby writes in The New Yorker. Debuting writer-director J.C. Chandor's command of his material is "downright awe inspiring," adds A.O. Scott in The New York Times.
Roadside Attractions
Good actors like Zachary Quinto and Penn Badgley make their Wall Street characters almost overly sympathetic in "Margin Call."
Set in the high-stakes world of the financial industry, "Margin Call" is a thriller entangling the key players at an investment firm during one perilous ...
Rating: R for language
Length: 109 minutes
Released: October 21, 2011 Limited
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley
Director: J.C. Chandor
Writer: J.C. Chandor
Josh Kovaks has managed one of the most luxurious and well-secured residences in New York City for more than a decade. In the swankiest unit ...
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual content
Length: 104 minutes
Released: November 4, 2011 Nationwide
Cast: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Tea Leoni, Casey Affleck
Director: Brett Ratner
Writer: Ted Griffin, Jeff Nathanson
The big-budget caper comedy "Tower Heist," meanwhile, is the latest release from much-reviled director Brett Ratner, regarded as one of Hollywood's most reliable schlockmeisters for his work on the highly popular "Rush Hour" series. The film tells the story of a motley crew of "clock punchers," led by Ben Stiller, who seek revenge on the "Wall Street kingpin" who stole their pension fund.
Occupy Wall Street? How about Occupy the Multiplex? It's an interesting coincidence that both these movies -- the acclaimed indie and the likely blockbuster -- arrive in Memphis on the same day, to confront, through fiction, the inequity of "the 1 percent." For my poorly managed money, however, the goofy escapist comedy is more useful than the earnest, thoughtful indie as a response to economic injustice.
Despite their gaps in budget, style and ambition ("Margin Call" bristles with knife-edged wit and award-worthy performances; "Tower Heist" mugs with jokes and shtick), the movies function almost as accidental companion pieces, in dialogue with each other across auditoriums. Moments intersect. "At the end of the day, one guy wins, one guy loses," says a young risk analyst (Penn Badgley) in "Margin Call." "Investing money is a gamble," affirms the crooked penthouse millionaire of "Tower Heist," played by Alan Alda. "It doesn't always pay off."
"Margin Call" places the moviegoer within the inner circle of these gamblers. The film takes place, essentially, over one long dark night -- literally as well as economically -- inside the skyscraper offices of a Lehman Brothers-esque investment bank, after a literal rocket scientist turned junior analyst (beautifully played by Zachary Quinto) discovers that the firm's holdings are nothing more than "the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism," in the words of the company CEO (a likably reptilian Jeremy Irons), summoned to the scene in a black helicopter like some sort of malevolent harbinger of Judgment Day.
The movie opens with a peculiarly civilized and cold-blooded 21st century blood bath, in which 80 percent of the employees on "the floor" are fired, as a cost-cutting measure. "This is your opportunity," the veteran head of trading (Kevin Spacey) promises the survivors. Unfortunately, this comes before Quinto's analyst -- completing research begun by a fired employee (a superb Stanley Tucci) -- discovers the disastrous significance of the firm's overleveraged assets, which threaten not just the company but the national economy.
As sleek and attractive as an obsidian serpent, the film has an insinuating, seductive style that ultimately romanticizes the traders it pretends only to humanize. Chandor repeatedly shoots the characters against large windows that reveal the city skyline below, to make an ironic comment on their God-like perspective and inaccessibility, but the irony gives way to affirmation.
The actors are so sympathetic (Spacey, Irons, Quinto and Tucci all deserve Oscar consideration), and the characters so smart, well-spoken, efficient and professional, that the effect may be more reassuring than frightening. The movie is respectful, even protective of the process; it doesn't excoriate the system as criminal or fraudulent but only overzealous.
Perhaps the greed that drives Wall Street is so extreme that it doesn't fit within a conventional "tasteful" drama; maybe it requires something angry and absurdist, a "Dr. Strangelove" about economics instead of politics. The funny, implausible "Tower Heist" at least recognizes this. Like "Margin Call," the film sets almost all its action inside or around a towering symbol of urban wealth, a skyscraper apartment building that represents "the most expensive real estate in North America." But the film allies itself with the street-level victims, not the literal higher-ups, the victimizers.
Ultra-rich investment manager Arthur Shaw (Alda) lives in the penthouse, with a rooftop pool, a Warhol Mao and a reassembled red Ferrari that once belonged to Steve McQueen. The staff that caters to his needs -- and the demands of all the residents -- is led by earnest Josh Kovacs (Stiller), an old schoolmate of Shaw. Claims the millionaire: "Deep down, I'm just an Astoria boy."
When Shaw is arrested for theft and fraud, the building's employees learn their pension fund was part of the fortune he stole and squandered. For payback, in both senses of the word, Kovacs concocts an elaborate heist of the fortune he believes Shaw has hidden inside his penthouse. Kovacs' amateur partners in crime include his desk-clerk brother-in-law (Casey Affleck), a "Puerto Rican Mohican" elevator operator (Michael Peña), a Jamaican maid (Gabourey "Precious" Sidibe) and an impoverished ex-broker (Matthew Broderick). For professional advice, Kovacs enlists his cat-burglar neighbor, played by Eddie Murphy, whose go-for-broke mugging is not out of place in this absurd but entertaining scenario.
"Tower Heist" suggests that Kovacs and his "working stiffs" have become the modern equivalents of pitchfork-wielding peasants, storming a castle tower to demand justice. The point of view is agreeable, but even more welcome is Ratner's workmanlike, almost old-school handling of the material: The movie never panders to the current vogue for gross-out humor; it skips the speechifying and moralizing we expect (and dread); and it maintains its focus on the comedy and suspense of the heist. Yes, it's a creation of Hollywood millionaires, but it's also something of a throwback to the class-conscious comedies of the Depression and other economically troubled eras: a pie in the face of the rich, not an apologia.
"Margin Call" is exclusively at Malco's Ridgeway Four. "Tower Heist" is -- well, almost everywhere there's a movie screen.
-- John Beifuss, 529-2394
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