Tower Heist

On paper Tower Heist looks golden: with one of the best comedy casts to date, featuring the likes of Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Gabourey Sidibe and Casey Affleck, it should rock. But while the cast is one of its strengths, it is also one of its weaknesses with no one getting enough screen time particularly Eddie Murphy, who is in fine form here.

The film focuses on business mogul Alan Alda and his hotel business, which employs the likes of Stiller, Affleck and Sidibe. Everything runs like clockwork, largely thanks to the efficient yet put upon Stiller in textbook character mode, but then one day it transpires that Alda is not an upstanding businessman after all, but a crook who has been raiding the company's pension schemes.

Determined to right some wrongs, Stiller bands together with the disgruntled employees and a proper thief in the form of an on song Eddie Murphy, to rob his boss.

Pacy, occasionally hilarious and with a first rate cast, Tower Heist is a solid comedy but prone to a few misfires, a preposterous finale and simply too many characters to make it a stand out.

***