Tower Heist delivers exactly what it says on the tin. However, that’s kind of all it is: a heist of a tower – nothing more and nothing less.

After the staff of the high rise New York apartments discover that their boss Arthur (Alda) has gambled away all of their invested life savings, a group of them decide to do something about it. Condominium manager Josh (Stiller) knows Arthur keeps a secret fortune up in the penthouse studio where he lives and takes this knowledge as an opportunity to get pay-back for them all.

To achieve this mastermind plan he recruits the best people he knows: his brother-in-law, a homeless banker, a newly hired member of staff and a chamber maid with a terrible Jamaican accent (Afleck, Broderick, Peña and Sidebe respectively). Perfect. And to head the gang he calls upon Eddie ‘Slide’ Murphy to complete his concoction of down-in-the-dump-wannabe-thieves. Téa Leoni also stars as the cop to catch ‘em all. From this point onwards, the film pretty much blurs into itself.

Considering the all star cast, my expectations of talent and delivery were comparably high – especially since this film had a lot of good marketing surrounding it. I was deeply disappointed. There were no scenes I could come away with to write home about as it was all rather forgetful and although Murphy’s humour was reminiscent of the Beverly Hills Cop days – in this context, it didn’t work. Michael Peña was actually the funniest character throughout, dropping lines like “I’m thinking of becoming a male prostitute” upon discovering he’s been made redundant, and responding “white neighbours” when asked what people in the apartments are really buying.

This film fits in well with the season and is the kind you’d expect to see on the box whilst the family are round eating Christmas dinner. For Murphy fans it could be hit or miss but unfortunately for me; it was more the latter.