Ben Stiller Has A Horrible Boss, Too, in the Trailer for Tower Heist

Memo from director Brett Ratner: Don't mess with Ben Stiller, fool. In Tower Heist, a Ponzi-scheming Bernie Madoff-type played by the quite-nefarious-these-days Alan Alda defrauds the lowly workers in his luxury high-rise out of their retirement funds. In return, the jilted building employees (Stiller, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick) hire a criminal (Eddie Murphy) to help steal $20 million back from Alda. I want to call this movie Trumping Mr. Trump or Makin' Off with Madoff $, but I guess the uber-generic Tower Heist will do. The trailer is damn shiny.

The payback setup reminds me of the old Jeffrey Archer book Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, but everything else reminds me of... Mr. Brett Ratner. That said, it's a pretty fun tableau for all the talent involved. Broderick is dishing Leo Bloom neurosis, Alda is glowering like the scumbag he played in The Aviator, and Eddie Murphy looks like he's having a ball as the role originated by Jamie Foxx two weeks ago in Horrible Bosses. I'll also give it up for Gabourey Sidibe, whose safecracking bit at the end of the trailer is cute.

As for all the accents going on in this trailer, I'll say this: I'm assuming Tower Heist's carnage qualifies it as this year's The Town, so on those grounds I accept the fact these accents that might make Bob Hoskins self-destruct. The movie opens Nov. 4, and I'm game for a skyscraper caper before the Oscar contenders start deluging the multiplex.

VERDICT: Ferris Bueller's Madoff

Check out the poster below. [via Yahoo!]