A supercharged ride through the cutthroat world of illegal stock selling, BOILER ROOM is fueled by an electric hip-hop soundtrack. Ribisi portrays Seth Davis, a college dropout who thinks he’s going straight when he takes a job at J.T. Marlin, a stock firm located in Long Island. Seth wants nothing more than to be loved and respected by his father, a revered judge. As he learns the ropes and begins to make waves within the company, he discovers that J.T. Marlin might be a bogus operation after all. A last attempt at redeeming himself threatens to land both him and his father in jail. Younger’s film is an adrenaline rush of a motion picture.
19-year-old New York college drop-out Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) has always been a disappointment to his father, Marty (Ron Rifkin), but seems to have at last earned a little grudging respect when he passes his broker’s exams and becomes employed at J.T. Marlin. Inspired by the ambitious approach of his new colleagues in the ‘boiler room’, Seth sets out to make his first million, at the same time embarking on a romance with company secretary Abby (Nia Long). However, it isn’t long before Seth realizes that he is in fact defrauding his new clients; the stock he is selling is worthless, and the whole J.T. Marlin operation is an illegal scam. Unable to talk to anyone, Seth’s dilemma over whether to expose the operation and so lose his new-found friends and status is heightened when the FBI become involved…
Boiler Room has some fine performances from Giovanni Ribisi, Nia Long, Vinn Diesel, and a scene stealing guest starring performance by Ben Affleck as the recruitment god who can sell like no one else, (apart from his boss apparently). The story is still original in the decade since it’s release, although the insistence on bringing in personal moral hazzard and the personal dynamic of father and son coming together is a little melodramatic compared to the key story arc of ripping people off with hot sales techniques and blowing money on super-cars. The shots of the city with a beating soundtrack still seem fresh and give the movie a unique feel compares to the other titles referenced in the film such as Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and David Mamet’s Glenn Garry Glen Ross.
