Mystery Team is a satire of sleuth films written by and starring the gentlemen behind Derrick Comedy. Doesn't ring any bells? These are the guys who gave us the YouTube hits Blowjob Girl, Girls Are Not To Be Trusted and Bro Rape: A Newsline Investigative Report.
Now that you've recalled them we can continue with Mystery Team. The film, as I said, parodies other sleuth films. It stars Donald Glover (Community) and fellow Derrick Comedy founders D.C. Pierson & Dominic Dierkes as Jason, Duncan and Charlie, respectively. These three lads are the mystery team in question. They've been together since childhood and have solved everything from who stuck their finger in Mrs. Kimmel's pie to who shaved a poor cat down to a stubble. These guys mean business.
Now, on the verge of graduating high school the guys are still at it, much to the chagrin of just about everyone they know. Given their age, people no longer take them seriously. That is, until they are hired to solve their hardest, toughest case yet: a double murder.
Enter Kelly (Parks and Rec's Aubrey Plaza) as the damsel in distress and Jason's love interest. With the stage set Jason, Duncan and Charlie set off on a hilarious adventure, trying to track down Kelly's missing ring and the man who murdered her parents.
The film isn't perfect, but it contains all of the comedy you've experience through their YouTube shorts on a magnified level. There is one sequence in which a stripper urinates Kelly's missing ring into a toilet (I'll leave the details of how it got into the stripper mum for they time being) and one of the guys must dig around in the muck (for there is much more than just number one and number two in this toilet) to retrieve it.
The funniest moments might come from Glover himself, though, whose facial reactions are comedic gold. It's always worth a laugh to hear him say something ridiculous and then immediately regret it through a facial reaction. Fans of NBC's Community know his looks well and can attest to their humor.
As with most of Derrick Comedy's productions, Dan Eckman is in the director's chair and while he's not doing anything ground-breaking, he frames up the situations well and strengthens the comedic performances of the three leads. Released in 2009 as the culmination of Derrick Comedy's efforts, Mystery Team has the look of a poorly crafted mystery film, which is exactly the point and is also why it succeeds the way it does.
Mystery Team - 3.5/5
Brett Ratner is like the poor man's Michael Bay. He essentially makes the same movies, but on a tighter budget. A tighter budget means less CGI and this sometimes pays off for Mr. Ratner. Please note that this doesn't mean his movies are good, they just have more heart than you'll ever find in a shallow Michael Bay production.
Tower Heist is a classic Ratner film. It has two leads that come from the proverbial opposite sides of the tracks, a villain in a heightened state of power, and a seemingly impossible task that the two leads must overcome. It's essentially an updated version of Rush Hour.
The two leads are Ben Stiller as Josh Kovacs, the manager of a high rise set of apartments called simply The Tower, and Eddie Murphy as Slide, a small-time criminal with a penchant for fast-talking (you could honestly place any character he's ever played here).
The plan for the heist comes into play after Josh, along with every other employee at The Tower, is defrauded by The Tower's most high profile playboy, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). Josh devises the plan with fellow employees Charlie (Casey Affleck) and Enrique Dev'Reaux (Michael Pena), ex-Tower resident Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) and Slide.
The whole goal of the heist is to find Shaw's safety net, which amounts to $20 million cash that he kept from the FBI inventory team. (On a side note, let me just say that Tea Leoni plays one of the least professional FBI agents ever depicted on the silver screen.) Anyhow, hijinks and the like ensue as everybody races to end up on top.
Now, Tower Heist is nothing revelatory, nor is it going to leave a memorable impression on you, but as I said at the beginning, Ratner's films have heart and this film is no exception. It isn't charming or witty or even highly polished for that matter, but it certainly tries. Stiller fits well into the role of reluctant criminal mastermind while Murphy is the funniest I've seen him in a long while (that's not saying much, mind you). Michael Pena does what he always does, that is, he plays the remedial fool and Casey Affleck has a more prevalent Bostonian accent than even his more famous kin.
As I said, there's nothing new about it, nor is it a stylistic gem, but take it with a grain of salt.
Tower Heist - 2.5/5
The film isn't perfect, but it contains all of the comedy you've experience through their YouTube shorts on a magnified level. There is one sequence in which a stripper urinates Kelly's missing ring into a toilet (I'll leave the details of how it got into the stripper mum for they time being) and one of the guys must dig around in the muck (for there is much more than just number one and number two in this toilet) to retrieve it.
