Boiler Room (2000) * * *

Directed by:  Ben Younger

Starring:  Giovanni Ribisi, Nicky Katt, Ron Rifkin, Nia Long, Ben Affleck, Vin Diesel

Right out of college, I interviewed for a job at a brokerage firm.    I was promised I could become a well-off man within a few years.    I'm sure I'm not the first nor the last person to hear this pitch.    The idea of attempting to pry people away from their money by selling legitimate or possibly dubious stock did not appeal to me.    I passed, but many probably did not.    Watching Boiler Room, I believe I made the right decision.     I was not born to be a high-pressure salesman.     I'll leave that to people who have the stomach for it.    Boiler Room is about a group of people who not only have the stomach for it, but thrive on the thought of becoming millionaires by talking to people on the phone and parting them from their money.  

Boiler Room centers on a young man named Seth who runs an illegal casino out of his apartment.    He makes money and runs the operation well.    However, his father, a federal judge, finds out about the operation and Seth closes up shop.    He decides to take his sales skills to a Long Island brokerage firm named JT Marlin.    The firm's recruiter, a millionaire named Jimmy (Affleck), gathers a group of prospects into a conference room and delivers his pitch.    "I'm a millionaire.   I'm liquid.    It's not a question of when you will be millionaire working here, but how many times over," he tells his audience.     There has to be a catch, of course.    Otherwise, everybody would be a stockbroker.   The catch is, a prospect doesn't make much money to start out and has to sell worthless stock to suckers who desperately want a piece of the American Dream.     Then, they begin trading for themselves.   By then, they are trained to be bullying phone salesmen who bulldoze people into buying stock that will ultimately cost them whatever little money they have.

The Wolf of Wall Street covers similar ground, but in a more highly energized way.    Boiler Room focuses on the lingo and the inner workings of such an operation.    Knowing full well that the FBI or some other regulatory agency will come sniffing around, the firm's founders have a backup plan to move the operations elsewhere.     Seth realizes that success in this world is fleeting.    His father (Rifkin) disapproves of his get-rich-quick philosophy.    Seth is forever trying to please his rigid dad.    Their eventual reconciliation is moving and is at the heart of the film.    "When I ran the casino, I at least provided a service that someone asked for," he says in voiceover narration.     He is correct.    A person enters a casino fully knowing the odds are not in his favor, but he freely gambles anyway.    A person purchasing stock has to trust a broker he has never met and buys strictly based on whether he believes the broker.    It is a risky proposition.

Boiler Room contains intense, smart performances.    Ribisi plays a young man who thinks he knows all the angles, but finds out he doesn't know a few.    Vin Diesel plays Chris, Seth's senior broker who shows him the ropes.    I've always enjoyed Diesel's streetwise intelligence.    It is on display here.    I was less interested in Seth's romance with the firm's secretary Abby (Long), who is hiding a secret or two from her boyfriend.    The romance seems forced in at a right angle. 

It has been said that Wall Street (1987) was meant as a cautionary tale.     Tell that to the guys in this movie, who in their down time watch Wall Street and quote Gordon Gekko's dialogue word for word.     They have adopted Gekko as their patron saint.     So much so they can quote Wall Street line for line.