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Boiler Room

2000, Movie, R, 117 mins

Boiler Room: Review

What kind of people work in "boiler rooms," shady brokerage firms that use high-pressure sales tactics to push marginal stocks, create artificial market inflation and leave a sad trail of ruined small investors in their wake? Directionless college dropout Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) runs a small casino out of his Queens apartment, making a tidy profit and enraging his father, a judge (Ron Rifkin). In walks Greg (Nicky Katt), a brash high roller who works for shady investment firm J.T. Marlin (that its name sounds like J.P. Morgan is no coincidence). He sets up Seth with a sharp-dressed recruiter (Ben Affleck), and Seth is thoroughly hooked by the promise that he'll make his first million in three years. So Seth signs away his soul and begins learning the ropes of extreme trading, distilled from the "greed is good" credo of WALL STREET and the cutthroat, take-no-prisoners competitiveness of GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, which the firm's golden boys watch as though they were studying newsreel footage of Moses descending from the mountain. The rules at Marlin are simple: Hook the sucker, close the deal, collect the commission and don't look back. First-time filmmaker Ben Younger makes not a single false move when delineating the merciless, high-testosterone world of boiler-room brokerages, and their appeal for a certain kind of impatient, marginalized young man who takes it as an article of faith that he's only as good as his high-tech toys. Seth's personal drama is steeped in the cliches of bad parenting and low self-esteem that one expects from TV-movies, but Vin Diesel makes a vivid impression as a fellow Marlin trader and, as Marlin himself, Tom Everett Scott scores a striking departure from the nice young men he usually plays. --Maitland McDonagh