Tag: heist films

Don’t waste your time with “Tower Heist” (2011)

Screenshot Tea Leoni Tower Heist 2011

Tower Heist” is a terrible movie. The story revolves around a “heist” that makes no sense. Practically every detail of the heist sequence is ridiculous. Only an idiot would find it remotely believable.

Somehow 67% of critics gave this hot mess a positive review, while this time the public gets it right with a score of 48%, which is still way too high.

The cast is talented and does a solid job with the silly script, so they can’t be blamed for this disaster. That leaves director Brett Ratner and screenwriters Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson. They can fight over who’s most at fault.

The film follows a group of employees at a luxurious New York City apartment building called “The Tower,” who seek revenge on a wealthy businessman, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), for swindling them out of their pensions. The story may have been inspired, at least in part, by the events surrounding Bernie Madoff‘s Ponzi scheme.

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Triangle

“Triangle” is one of those films where the concept is more promising than the final product. Told in three 30-minute segments — with each one helmed by a different director — the movie stars Simon Yam, Louis Koo and Sun Hong Lei as a trio of drinking buddies who are down on their luck. But when a mysterious man approaches them one night with information about an ancient treasure buried underneath a government building, the three friends attempt to pull off the perfect heist. Unfortunately, just about everything that can go wrong does, and while that certainly makes for an engaging crime thriller, it’s also the film’s biggest problem. There are simply too many people with their hands in the pot, from the three directors (Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To) to the six writers credited for the script. As such, the story is confusing as hell at first, testing the audience’s patience with very little background info and numerous subplots. By the time Lam’s second third has run its course, however, the pieces are all in place for a tension-packed final act that To masterfully directs with equal parts action, comedy and drama. “Triangle” isn’t one of their finest films, but fans of the directors will no doubt enjoy watching how it evolves in the hands of some of Hong Kong’s greatest filmmakers.

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