Tower Heist

First Hit:  There are some very strong funny laughs in this totally improbable story.

From the beginning of the film, there are strong laughs, out loud laughs.

Maybe it helped that the woman behind me was fully engaged in her very out-loud amusing laugh at many of the situations. But like her, at times, I found some of this film very funny.

Arthur Shaw (played by Alan Alda) is a Bernie Madoff type character who has been accused of inappropriate use of investor money. “The Towers” where he lives in the penthouse suite which has his pool on the roof and a hundred dollar bill painted on the bottom.

“The Towers” (looking like Trump Tower), has a staff that is there to fully serve the residents. The manager is Josh Kovacs (played by Ben Stiller) who has a staff of willing workers including Charlie (played by Casey Affleck) the concierge, Lester (played by Stephen Henderson) the doorman, and Odessa (played by Gabourey Sidibe) as a chambermaid.

There is also a resident named Mr. Fitzhugh (played by Matthew Broderick). When Shaw is arrested trying to sneak out of the country by FBI special agent Claire Denham (played by Tea Leoni), the staff realizes that all their money, invested by Shaw, is gone. After a suicide attempt by Lester, the staff and Mr. Fitzhugh decide to find the $20 million dollar stash that is believed Shaw has hidden in his penthouse.

Also in the Penthouse is Shaw’s pride possession, a Ferrari once owned by Steve McQueen. The staff, guided by, their expert thief Slide (played by Eddie Murphy) set out to find the $20M only to find more but not in the form they expected.

Stiller is perfect as the controlling, yet flexible, Manager. Alda is beyond perfect as the arrogant financier who thinks he’s getting away with something. Murphy is great as the smart-alecky thief. Affleck is very good as the overly cautious father-to-be, who is only looking to have his baby born healthy. Sidibe is funny in this comedic role. Broderick is more forlorn than usual which fits him. Leoni is very funny as the FBI agent who wants to play by the rule book, gets drunk well, and wants The Tower’s staff to get their just deserts. Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson wrote a funny and impossible story. Brett Ratner did a good job of pulling laughs from the characters and dealing with improbability.

Overall: This film has a great cast, was funny often but what and how they rob Shaw was not realistic.

Johnny English: Reborn

First Hit:  This film will make you laugh at some point or another during it's 101 minutes and it stays entertaining through the outtake during the credits.

Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is an ostracized MI-6 agent who messed up an assignment in another country. He was excused from the agency because he was lured away from protecting the President of Mozambique by a beautiful woman, which led to the assassination of said leader.

At the beginning of the film we find Johnny in an Asian monastery learning meditation and martial arts from Ting Wang (played by Togo Igawa). There are riffs in these segments on the Kung Fu television series which most people won’t remember, but nonetheless, are funny.

Another agent is in trouble and trusts only English to help him, so Johnny is inducted back into the agency. English works for Pamela (played by Gillian Anderson) who is tough on him. His perceived agent friend Ambrose (played by Dominic West) turns out to not be a friend but the audience knows this early on.

Johnny gets assigned a new agent (Agent Tucker played by Daniel Kaluuya) to assist him in figuring out the next assassination plot. Through trial and error Agent English bluffs, fights, cajoles and uncovers the plot, but not without a lot of goofball mistakes along the way.

I particularly enjoyed the chair scene in the meeting with the Prime Minister. The cat scene was also precious. While English works his particular magic to figure out the plot, the Agency tries to see if he is simply a ditz by using a psychologist agent named Kate (Rosamund Pike) to monitor his actions through facial expressions.

Atkinson is wonderful as a smart, yet sometimes idiotic, agent. Igawa is funny and good as his Asian master. Anderson is adequate at the head of MI-6. Pike is very good as the psychologist that actually sees the brilliance and stupidity of English. Kaluuya is charming as English’s supportive agent in the field. West is perfect as the charming egocentric agent that is looking for more. William Davies and Hamish McColl wrote a funny and nicely sequenced script. Oliver Parker directed English in a way that gave him the freedom to be both brilliant in character and amusing to watch.

Overall:  This is an entertaining film and is easy to watch.

The Big Year

First Hit:  Moderately funny and insightful as to the phenomena of bird watching.

Bird watching may be a passive pursuit but Americans will make a competition out of anything and here we witness the competition at its finest, worst, and funniest.

Brad Harris (played by Jack Black) is working at an IT job he doesn’t enjoy. His real love is bird watching and one day he wants to do a “Big Year”. Stu Preissler (played by Steve Martin) is an extremely successful businessman, loves bird watching, and itches to get out of his CEO role and into doing a “Big Year.”

Kenny Bostick (played by Owen Wilson) is the record holder for “The Big Year” with 732 different North American bird sightings in one year. Birders do not tell each other that they are doing a “Big Year” because they don’t want someone else to know they are trying for the most sightings in a year.

The focus of this film is relationship building and understanding priorities. Brad’s dad thinks Brad is wasting his life being interested in birds. The scene when his dad and he find an owl, the sighting brings reconciliation and resolves years of pain. Stu keeps getting called back by his lieutenants to fix their incompetence but he learns that his supportive wife and new grandchild mean more than his work.

Bostick is obsessive about his record and he is good at counting birds. The issues are that he puts his record over his wife’s wanting to have a baby. The scenes around his decisions reflect cruelty, obsessiveness, and thoughtlessness.

There is humor along the way but I found the film more dramatic than of comedic based. The strongest aspects of this film are informing the audience about how various weather phenomena affect bird migration behavior.

This film has education built into it and during the credits we get to see slides of all the 755 Bostick gets in this new “Big Year.”

Black was good as the guy who is stuck doing a job he doesn’t like but trying to find a way to do what he wants. Martin really fits the role as a cool rich business tycoon who realizes that life is more than his work. Wilson is perfect as the guy who can argue and reason his abhorrent behavior with wit and in the end feel his sadness. Howard Franklin wrote a smart screenplay that was moderately funny. David Frankel’s direction was clear and crisp enough to make this perceived boring subject exciting.

Overall: This was a good, educational and fun film to watch.

50/50

First Hit: A surprisingly good and well thought-out film.

I’ve stated this before that I’m not a Seth Rogan fan. Here he plays the same person, himself, but this time it fits.

Seth, as Kyle, is the best friend of Adam (played Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who discovers he has cancer. He is an obnoxious friend but he is also caring in all the ways Adam's girlfriend Rachel (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) cannot be. Rachel makes an attempt to move in with Adam and assist him with this battle, but as time goes by she learns that this isn’t within her wheelhouse.

Kyle dislikes Rachel and gladly catches her having an affair and tells Adam. Rachel gets appropriately kicked out of Adam’s house. Kyle does everything he knows how to do to assist Adam through this trying time, even reading books on how to be supportive of a dying friend. He drives him to and from doctor's appointments along with trying to get himself and Adam laid using cancer as the excuse/reason.

For additional support Adam gets assigned a therapist named Katherine (played by Anna Kendrick) who is very young therapist that tries to assist Adam with his denied emotional struggle. These are the major players in this film about what happens to relationships, families, and friends when someone gets this news.

Not all things are covered in this film, but the important ones are brought forth. There is the denial, fear, and acceptance which gets expressed for everyone at some level. The strength of this film is in Gordon-Levitt’s ability to be with this character.

This film doesn’t break any new ground on the subject, but it does bring a well told thoughtful story.

Gordon-Levitt was very good as the guy who always settled for second best learning how to accept life more fully. Rogan was really good as the obnoxious friend who has a heart and does what he knows how to do to be there for his friend. Howard is elusively perfect as the girl who wants to do good but has one foot out the door and is un-thoughtful towards Adam. Kendrick is a lot like her other major role in “Up In The Air” as a smart but lacking experience and street savvy person that does learn by the end of the film. Will Reiser wrote a strong script. Jonathan Levine did a credible job of directing this story.

Overall: This was a very watchable and thoughtful film.

30 Minutes or Less

First Hit:  A haphazard attempt at comedy and action ending up somewhat lifeless.

Jesse Eisenberg is Nick a lost intelligent young man who delivers pizza for a living. His roommate Chet (played by Aziz Ansari) is a school teacher. They’ve been friends for a long time and the sense is that they are together because they tolerate each other when nobody else can.

Nick is captured by Dwayne (played by Danny McBride) and Travis (played by Nick Swardson) on one of his pizza delivery runs. They tell him that he will rob a bank for them because they've strapped a bomb to him and if he doesn't do this they will detonate the bomb.

Dwayne wants the money so that he can hire Chango (played by Michael Pena) to kill Dwayne’s father “The Major” (played by Fred Ward). Sound a little dumb? It is, and outside of Pena, the scenes and much of the acting in this film is atrocious.

There are some funny lines in this film but for the most part, this film is lost from the get go and stays lost all the way until the end. An example of its stupidity, given Travis' character, where would he get the inkling, intelligence, and know how to build a sophisticated vest bomb which is Nick’s motivation to rob a bank?

Eisenberg is a wonderful actor when in a role that is of intelligence. He was miscast here. Ansari’s first tool of comedy is to be loud and sarcastic. It is more annoying than anything else and there wasn’t anything on the screen that told me that he and Eisenberg had any real friendship chemistry. McBride was painful to watch. It is difficult to act that stupid (as the character called for) and he wasn’t up to it. Swardson was better as he seemed to understand and act his role as both the conscious and supporting friend to McBride. Pena was the only actor that I felt was believable in this unbelievable movie. Dilshad Vadsaria as Kate (Nick’s girlfriend and Chet’s sister) was fine to look at but there is no way that she and Eisenberg made a believable couple. Michael Diliberti wrote this poorly conceived screenplay and Director Ruben Fleischer didn’t help things as all.

Overall: Outside of some funny lines and scenes, this film had no guts or intelligence. It isn’t even worth an “On Demand” look.