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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Giovanni Ribisi tops a dynamite cast in writer-director Ben Younger's crisply told tale of young Wall Street bottom feeders on the make.
Feb 18, 2000 | "Boiler Room," writer-director Ben Younger's debut film about young wannabe hotshots who peddle shady stocks over the phone, has any number of things going for it, starting with a decent script and one especially fine actor, Giovanni Ribisi. What's weirdly fascinating about it, though, is the way Younger manages to pull off the same kind of illusion that the movie's sharp young protagonist does: He talks us into buying a bill of goods, and most of the pleasure of watching the picture comes from seeing, and marveling at, how well he does it.
"Boiler Room" is a movie made with confidence that borders on bravado, and sometimes it shows more conviction than it does grace. But it moves along at a brisk clip, and there's almost always an engaging actor to look at or an enjoyably brash volley of dialogue that makes you feel as if you've wandered into the middle of a particularly ruthless squash game. In moviemaking, as in cold-calling, sometimes conviction is almost enough.
For one thing, Younger doesn't make the mistake of simply remaking Oliver Stone's ham-fistedly moralistic "Wall Street" (he seems to realize that no filmmaker in his or her right mind would want to), nor does he tire himself out trying to drive home the immorality and clueless depravity of contemporary young men, the way Neil LaBute does in the flaccid and ineffectual "In the Company of Men."
There are some things Younger throws into "Boiler Room" that he just doesn't need: The central character, Ribisi's Seth Davis, yearns to win the approval of his no-nonsense judge dad (played with droning predictability by Ron Rifkin), and that angle of the plot ends up feeling like a cheap ploy to explain why an essentially good boy is willing to involve himself in unsavory stock market dealings -- as if old-fashioned greed just weren't interesting enough.
Luckily, though, Younger never completely underestimates the power of greed. He recognizes it as the main motivator that would draw young men -- and these are all men; women aren't especially welcome -- to a boiler room in the first place. In the movie's terms, a boiler room is the nerve center (here, it's a tacky gymnasium-like room crowded with desks, phones and fast-talking young guys) of a less than completely reputable hard-sell brokerage, the kind of firm that makes money by pressuring customers into buying stock in unknown or bogus companies. The firm's brokers make huge commissions off these sales, and may not even have to lift a finger to do so; their calls are often made by foot soldiers who haven't yet passed the Series Seven (the exam that gives stockbrokers legal status) -- who have no choice but to pass along whatever accounts they happen to land.
Seth, a college dropout who's running an illegal but extremely profitable casino out of his Queens apartment, is lured into a boiler room when a broker from the questionably named J.T. Marlin -- not to be confused with J.P. Morgan, unless you're a hapless sap on the other end of the phone line -- drops by to visit in his flashy new sports car. That broker, Greg (Nicky Katt), and one of his buddies, Chris (Vin Diesel), show Seth the ropes, coaching him in the process of contacting leads by phone and hanging on like a terrier until they've agreed to buy the proffered stock. The boiler room is a place where bad boys can thrive: Their bible is David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," and sexism runs rampant (broker trainees are told that under no circumstances should they "pitch the bitch," in other words, sell stock to women).
In the brokers' off-hours, they hang out in Greg's huge, gorgeous, practically empty apartment (its central furnishings are a leather couch, a massive TV and a tanning bed), wearing tacky tracksuits and mimicking Michael Douglas' most memorable lines from "Wall Street." There's a certain amount of camaraderie, but competitiveness always takes precedence over loyalty. Early on, it's playful, almost affectionate, when Greg (who, like Seth, is Jewish) tells the Italian-American Chris, "Why don't you go back to Little Italy?" and Chris shoots back, "Why don't you go make me a latke, dreidel boy?" But it's not long before you sense the seething animosity that simmers beneath their jokes.
