Ocean's 5.5. Maybe 7.33: "Tower Heist"

I know George Clooney. George Clooney is my bro. You, Ben Stiller, are no George Clooney ...

In the continuing annals of "What Does Redbox Have That Both My Wife and I Would Borderline Enjoy?", we ended up with "Tower Heist." I recalled the trailer being somewhat amusing, and along with Frank Costanza's kid we had a (Triple-A) All-Star cast of fun actors. Should be OK, right?

And it was ... OK, that is. Our story isn't so complex. Stiller is the chief of staff at a luxury condo tower in New York. Did I say "luxury?" They. Cover. Everything. And Benny boy prides himself on it. Unfortunately, his fawning over the elite gets him in serious trouble, as it turns out the penthouse resident (Alan Alda) is a Madoff type who loses all of the staff's retirement funds. Whoopsie!

With Faux Madoff unrepentant and the Feds -- led by (Lipton) Tea Leoni -- not giving two sh!ts, either,  Zoolander starts rounding up people to break into the bad man's roost and rip him off. A-ha! This gives the ensemble cast a chance to ... well, not shine, really. Maybe shimmer? Glisten? Whatever. We have Precious, Ferris, Michael "Man, I've Been in a Lot of Movies the Last Few Years" Pena, Ben Affleck's More Skilled Brother and even Alex from "Taxi." Like I said, good actors, although not anyone you'd hang a movie on by him/herself.

Oh, and then there's the other big star, one Edward Regan Murphy. Yeah ... Stiller and Eddie in the same movie. And the chemistry ... wow! And by that, I mean, "meh." They're fine, sure, but even with the odd couple pairing -- Murphy is a thief who happens to live near the straight-arrow Stiller -- it's really kind of paint by numbers.

And that's the rub with this whole affair. While the story gets the Brett Ratner treatment and has some whiz-bang-pop, there's still not a lot there, even with the twists at the end. I submit that no matter how the principals might insist this movie stand on its own merits, it's darn near impossible to think about how this was all so much more fun when Clooney, Pitt and Damon were in cahoots. And not that Andy Garcia is all that fierce, but Alan Alda as a villain? Was Michael Gross not available?