Tower Heist

Posted on November 4, 2011 at 10:09 am

If the Occupy Wall Street crowd decided to make it movie it would be “Tower Heist,” the story of 99%-ers stealing back from a 1% guy what he stole from them.

Alan Alda has a lot of fun playing a bad guy for a change, a Madoff-style villain named Arthur Shaw who takes a daily swim in his rooftop pool with an enormous painting of a hundred dollar bill along the bottom. He lives in the penthouse of a luxury building in New York with an attentive staff under the perfectionist eye of building manager Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller). The employees entrusted him with their pension money and when he is arrested for securities fraud they realize that the money they saved and counted on for retirement has disappeared. Luther, the doorman (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is so disconsolate he attempts suicide. And Josh is so frustrated and furious that he plots a heist to steal some of their money back, with the help of a lowlife neighbor named Slide (Eddie Murphy, who co-produced). Josh has spent years protecting Shaw and the other wealthy residents of the building by creating an unbreakable security system. And he has spent years losing to Shaw in their online chess game. Will he be able to take Shaw’s king?

Co-scripter Ted Griffin wrote “Oceans 11” so he knows that heist films depend on three things: (1) We have to be on the side of the thieves and it helps to have them steal from an arrogant bad guy. Check. (2) It has to be a challenge with some enormous logistical obstacles to outsmart. Check. And (3) there have to be some unexpected problems for our anti-heroes to solve as the caper is underway. Check again.

It is a pleasure to see Eddie Murphy, who co-produced, funny again in a live action film, playing a character who might be an older, less smooth relative of his “48 Hours” Reggie Hammond. Instead of trying to play all the parts himself, he blends into a top-notch ensemble cast that includes Téa Leoni as an FBI agent, Gabourey Sidibe of “Precious” as a maid who is handy with locks, an abashed Matthew Broderick as a failed Wall Streeter evicted from the building, and Michael Peña and Casey Affleck as accomplices. We could use a lot more Leoni (any movie could use more Leoni) and the conclusion feels awkwardly tacked on, but it is timely and fun.

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Interview: Harry Markopolos of Chasing Madoff

Posted on August 22, 2011 at 5:32 pm

The award for the biggest “I told you so” of all time has to go to Harry Markopolos, who fought for nine years to convince anyone — regulator, prosecutor, journalist, or customer — that Bernard Madoff was a crook. Finally, Madoff turned himself in for what turned out to be the biggest financial fraud in history. At least, it’s the biggest one we know about so far. And it continues to make headlines, the latest today as a court ruled that Madoff victims cannot recover the fictitious profitsreflected on the statements they received.

Markopolos is the subject of a new documentary called “Chasing Madoff.” He spoke to me about preventing and detecting fraud and the cases he is involved with now. He will be attendng the Taxpayers Against Fraud conference in Washington, D.C. next month.

In the movie, you describe yourself as the boy who cried wolf — except that there was a wolf.

It felt like a fairy tale or was entering The Twilight Zone, no straight lines, just crooked lines.

I can understand why harried bureaucrats and conflicted politicians and journalists might be reluctant to tell the emperor he had no clothes. Madoff was a very connected and distinguished man. But why would the people who had money invested with him have no interest at all in asking him about the questions you raised?

The key point is that the smart people assumed he was front-running. That would put Madoff in jail if he was caught, but not the people who invested with him, and they’d still have the money. He was handling 5-10 percent of the stock value trades in the US and they assumed they were the beneficiaries of the fraud, not the victims. He intimidated people into not asking any questions. If you tried, he’d offer to give your money back. People did not pursue it because they wanted to remain in the money club.

Why would such a successful man think fraud was worth the risk?

You’re assuming he was successful before. He had a boiler room operation out of his apartment when he first entered in 1962. He had a 46-year-long crime spree.

Why did he finally give up? To protect his sons?

To protect himself. It didn’t start out dangerous. When I saw the offshore hedge funds putting money in, I knew it was organized crime, laundering money against host nation tax authorities. Prison was the only place to keep him alive.

Do we know the truth now? Have you read his interviews since going to jail?

He is still lying. One or two or three things are true; the rest are lies. It is true that he hates me; he said that. He worked with the Chicago Board of Exchange and the big banks; they were willing conspirators. He named some names, threw some people under the bus. But three out of four of them are dead and the other one is 99 years old. There were a lot of people in bed with him.

Have any lessons been learned? Are we doing a better job of preventing and spotting fraud?

Not really. They should call them “compliant officers,” not “compliance officers.” Their specialty is looking the other way and not rocking the boat. You might as well give them a broom, they just sweep things under the rug. They are about appearances, not reality. Our cases against Bank of New York and State Street are moving forward and more are in the pipeline. For years, they were taking .3 of a percent from every trade for their pension fund clients.

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30 Minutes or Less

Posted on August 11, 2011 at 6:42 pm

Counter-terrorism expert Mark Sageman has described what he calls the “bunch of guys” theory. Instead of looking for a mastermind and a bunch of crackerjack operatives, Sageman says more often the people who create mayhem are a bunch of guys who think they are more intelligent and capable than they really are. “30 Minutes or Less” is what we could call a “bunch of guys” movie about two pairs of guy-friends who get wrapped up in a bank robbery and murder for hire from a combination of bitterness, slackerdom, and way too many movies and video games, with constant crude language and sexual references. In other words, if Quentin Tarantino made a Three Stooges heist movie, this is what it would look like.

Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Adam Sandler pal Nick Swardson), in the tradition of duos from Jay and Silent Bob to Dumb and Dumber spend their days hanging around the house Dwayne’s dad (Fred Ward) bought with his $10 million lottery winnings. They eat, squabble, blow stuff up, watch movies, play video games, and talk about all the things they could do if they had the money.

Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) delivers pizzas for a place that promises if it doesn’t get there in 30 minutes, it’s free. His best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari of “Parks and Recreation”) is a teacher and the twin brother of the girl Nick likes. They hang out, squabble, and watch movies.

Dwayne decides to hire someone to kill his father, a retired Major (Fred Ward). But it costs $100,000, so before he can do that, he decides to force some random guy to rob a bank for him by making him wear a vest covered with explosives. How do you get a random guy to come to an isolated place? Order a pizza.

This is a fairly standard “dumb guys do dumb stuff” movie along the lines of “Pineapple Express.” There are some funny moments and clever conceits but the family of a real-life young man who was killed in a similar incident has raised strong objections to turning a tragic story into a buddy comedy and it is difficult for this slight material to overcome that blight.

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Horrible Bosses

Posted on July 7, 2011 at 6:05 pm

Three old friends who work for deranged, abusive bosses decide that the only solution is a “Strangers on a Train”-style murder swap in a lightweight comedy sustained by recession-era resentment fantasies, some attention to plot structure, and a bunch of top comic performers enjoying themselves so much it is impossible not to join them. As confirmed by the outtakes over the closing credits, even the stars were shocked into laughter by some of the more outrageous moments in the film. This is what “Bad Teacher” wanted to be, cheerfully offensive with some forward propulsion. It’s a wish fulfillment story with the vicarious pleasure of revenge and of seeing other people get into a lot of trouble for taking the risks we are much too careful to attempt.

You can see that Jennifer Aniston, looking like an inhumanly idealized CGI version of herself, is so happy to be out of those cloying rom-coms that she has a total blast as a predatory and sexually voracious dentist who only gets more excited by humiliating her assistant (Charlie Day as Dale). Even her dentist music plays “Crazy.” Colin Farrell, unrecognizable as a paunchy cokehead with a hangover, clearly enjoys playing a nunchucking nutball whose primary influence on home decoration appears to Uday Hussein. And Kevin Spacey, who pretty much owns the bad boss role brings it once again as a paranoid, manipulative bully.

No wonder Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), Nick (Jason Bateman), and Dale feel trapped. None of them can find another job. Horrible bosses don’t hesitate to threaten bad references and the job market is awful. A high school classmate who was once a successful financier at Lehman Brothers is now reduced to, well, let’s just say he has his hand out. So, being the dim-witted play by the rules guys that they are, with their only knowledge of crime coming from Dale’s intensive study of the “Law & Order” franchise, they try to find an assassin to knock off the horrible bosses, reasoning that “We don’t clean our apartments or cut our hair,” so why should they do their own killing? They look for help first on the internet (and wonder whether they should have a cheese plate to offer the hired killer) and then try some random guy because he is black and has a scary nickname and lot of tattoos and therefore must be a badass (Jamie Foxx, very funny as Jones).

Unlike “Bad Teacher,” this film recognizes that the outrageous and shocking behavior works only if there is a solidly structured plot to keep things moving. It is as funny to see how some of the elements from the first half come back in the second as it is to see Aniston’s sexual predator, spraying Day’s crotch with the hose from the spit sink and singing out, “Shabbat Shalom!” at what is revealed. Bateman’s impeccably dry delivery is perfectly balanced with Sukeikis’ guy-next door (if the guy next door was constantly looking for short-term female companionship) cheer, and a nice restorative after the awful “Hall Pass.” Julie Bowen (“Modern Family”), Lindsay Sloane, and Ioan Gruffudd make the most of brief appearances and good spirits about bad activities keeps things brisk and lively. It is most likely to be remembered in the future as a relic of (we hope) a low point in the American economy than anyone’s notion of a classic, but fans of raunchy comedy will find something to enjoy.
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The Green Hornet

Posted on May 3, 2011 at 8:00 am

Anyone here remember Van Williams?

He was the star of the 1966-67 television series, “The Green Hornet.” But the only thing anyone remembers about the show today was the actor who played the title character’s martial arts and automotive expert sidekick, Kato: Bruce Lee. The tradition continues with this new film. Jay Chou (“Curse of the Golden Flower”) has the screen charisma, timing, and fight skills to make Kato watchable. That guy who plays the Hornet? Not so much.

In fact, the three things wrong with this movie are: Seth Rogen co-produced, Seth Rogen co-wrote, and Seth Rogen stars. Seth Rogen the co-producer and writer badly over-estimates the appeal of Rogen the performer. When called upon to play a clueless schlub, he can convey a certain shambling lack of pretension or artifice with some appeal. He was perfect as the brainless jello character in “Monsters vs. Aliens” and held his own fairly well as a secondary character in “Funny People,” “Superbad,” and “Knocked Up.” He may have some meta aspirations in casting himself as a self-indulgent and irresponsible playboy who decides to become a force for justice. But he doesn’t even make a persuasive dissolute. When he tries to do more, he loses all of the affection from the audience he ever mustered in playing guys who were better than they knew. Here is is so much less than his character believes to be and is supposed to be, he comes across as full of himself and egotistical; it’s as though his success in Hollywood and his hyphenate status have finally gone to his head. And even though he apparently recognizes his limited range by reducing the character arc to about an inch and a half; even after Britt decides to become a sort-of grown-up and a sort-of crime-fighter, Rogen the writer and Rogen the actor keep him pretty much an immature dope all the way through. It wears thin long before the movie is half over.

It also drags down the parts of the film that do work, especially Chou, whose precise, understated delivery is a nice counterpoint to Rogen’s messy stumbles. Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Be Kind, Rewind”) has a gift for whimsy that adds visual interest. An impossibly souped-up supercar has an old-fashioned turntable for playing disarmingly retro LPs. He slices up the screen into segments resembling something between “The Thomas Crown Affair,” the opening credits of “The Brady Bunch,” and that Breck shampoo commercial about “and they they told two people and they told two people.” And he makes good use of the depth of 3D in the fight scenes. We get Kato-vision to see how he sizes up the opposition, with a clever variation later on. Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz (“Inglourious Basterds”) manages to make more of the villain than the script gives him and there’s a nice cameo from the ubiquitous James Franco (giving us time to think that he would make a great Hornet).

Rogen is falling into the Adam Sandler/Peter Pan trap, the endless boy-man, alternately wolfish toward and intimidated by girls (Cameron Diaz has the thankless role) and incapable of taking responsibility at home or at work. At one point, Kato literally puts him in a diaper. The only reason to give the audience such a mess is so we can have the fun of seeing him learn some lessons. But he never does. This is a hornet that’s all buzz, no sting.

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