'Tower Heist' almost a steal

If you took some of the characteristics of great heist movies and watered them down, you'd have "Tower Heist."

Ben Stiller plays Josh Kovacs, the manager of the Tower Apartments, a home for the white-collared community.

Kovacs finds out his favorite tenant, Arthur Shaw, played by Alan Alda, is under arrest by the FBI for fraud and is withholding the Tower employees' pensions.

Kovacs, upset by Shaw's greed, gets the idea to rob him for the sake of his co-workers and assembles a team to do the job.

The recruits include his sissy brother-in-law Charlie, played by Casey Affleck; Mr. Fitzhugh, a timid mathematical genius played by Matthew Broderick; and recently hired elevator specialist, Enrique Dev'Reaux, played by Michael Peña.

The only problem is none of them are criminals.

Enter Eddie Murphy, who plays a tough-guy robber and neighbor of Kovacs. Murphy's character, known as Slide, teaches these guys the basics.

In a scenario where everything should have gone wrong, the team pulls off the heist, with help from the employees, and they get their pension back.

Of course, there's a love interest for Kovacs. Tea Leoni plays FBI special-agent Claire Denham who not only brings in Shaw, but tracks down the robbers after the heist.

The chemistry between Leoni and Stiller isn't quite there — something is missing between the two that would have put them in the same stadium as Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968).

The film borrows some elements from other heist movies, such as "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), "The Italian Job" (2003) and the classic "Take the Money and Run" (1969), but the quirky heist humor is lacking, but there are still funny moments throughout the movie.

The rather dull acting and under-developed characters makes paying attention to the film difficult, which is a disappointment because of the decent storyline.

The ending rings of "Robin Hood" in that justice is restored, someone rightfully goes to prison and everyone walks away with a piece of the pie.

Overall, the story is well written and the message is there, but the low-quality acting jobs make this flick difficult to follow and nowhere near as great as other heist movies.