Tower Heist (2011) on Netflix
PG-1320111h 44mActionComedyCrime
Josh Kovaks manages a New York high-rise where the penthouse tenant, financier Arthur Shaw, handled the staff's pension fund. Shaw's arrest for fraud leaves the employees planning a heist.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.2/10158,531 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
Josh Kovaks manages The Tower, a luxury apartment building in New York City, where the penthouse tenant is the financier Arthur Shaw. At Josh's request, Shaw also looks after the staff's pension fund. The FBI places Shaw under house arrest for running a Ponzi scheme that took as much as $2 billion, and the employees learn their pensions are gone. Josh, his brother-in-law and concierge Charlie, and the elevator operator Enrique confront Shaw and are fired. Special Agent Claire Denham, who is handling the case, tells Josh that Shaw is believed to have $20 million set aside. Josh recruits Charlie, Enrique and an evicted tenant, Mr. Fitzhugh. Needing someone who knows how to steal, he asks Slide, a thief he has known since boyhood, and Odessa, the building's maid, to join.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tower Heist (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film marked one of Heavy D's final roles and the last to be released while he was still alive: he died on November 8, 2011, four days after its theatrical release.
- Universal Pictures planned to offer the film for home viewing on video on demand to 500,000 Comcast customers only three weeks after its cinema debut. Fears that this would harm ticket sales led several theater chains to refuse to show the film at all if the plan went ahead, and Universal abandoned it.
- The idea began as early as 2005, when Eddie Murphy pitched producers Brian Grazer and Brett Ratner an all-star cast of black comedians, including Chris Tucker, Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Tracy Morgan and Martin Lawrence, as disgruntled employees robbing Donald Trump and Trump International Hotel and Tower. It was then titled Trump Heist.
- A genuine 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso, of which only 350 exist, would have cost at least $1 million and been unsuitable for filming, so two replicas were commissioned and took three months to build. Camera tests led the crew to paint them bright red rather than the muted metallic brown of McQueen's actual car.
- In post-production Universal decided to film a new ending in which Stiller's and Murphy's characters are reunited. Murphy refused to return unless he was paid a further $500,000 on top of his $7.5 million salary, the studio declined, and the scene was never shot.
