Themes: Office Politics, Going Straight, Ladder to the Top
Main Cast: Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Nia Long, Nicky Katt, Scott Caan
Release Year: 2000
Country: US
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
In this drama that explores greed and corruption in American business, Giovanni Ribisi plays Seth Davis, an intelligent and ambitious college dropout who runs a casino in his apartment. Eager to show his father that he can succeed, Seth lands a job with a small stock brokerage firm. He is given a space in the company's "boiler room," where he makes cold calls to prospective clients. As it turns out, Seth has a genuine talent for cold calling, which gains him the approval of his superiors, the admiration of his father, and the attentions of one of his co-workers, Abby Hilliard (Nia Long). However, the higher up the ladder Seth rises, the deeper he sinks into a quagmire of dirty dealings, until he's breaking the law in order to keep his bosses happy and his paychecks coming. The Boiler Room also features Tom Everett Scott, Scott Caan, Jamie Kennedy, Nicky Katt, and Ben Affleck in a cameo as the headhunter who brings Seth into the firm. Ribisi and Scott also appeared together in That Thing You Do; Ribisi was the drummer replaced by Scott, who then led The One-Ders to fictional pop stardom. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
The directorial debut of filmmaker Ben Younger, Boiler Room (2000) is a stylishly rendered drama that is perhaps overly indebted to several previous films, most notably the "greed is good" philosophy of Wall Street (1987). Although Younger acknowledges his inspiration with a scene paying homage to Oliver Stone's anti-corporate treatise, Boiler Room is more of a Generation-X imitation than a serious reconsideration of the same subject matter. Nevertheless, Younger creates some memorable visuals, and extracts excellent performances from a talented cast, notably character actor Giovanni Ribisi, who successfully carries a film as a leading man for the first time. Unfolding like an anti-Horatio Alger tale, or the sobering flip side of '80s-era "boy makes rich" films like The Secret of My Success (1987) and Cocktail (1988), Boiler Room ends up a well-crafted but overly familiar tale of youthful exuberance and ambition corrupted by big business. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Ron Rifkin - Judge Davis; Jamie Kennedy - Adam; Taylor Nichols - Harry Reynard; Bill Nichols - Agent Drew; Tom Everett Scott - Michael Brantley; Ben Affleck - Jim Young; Marsha Dietlein - Susan Reynard; John Griesemer - Concierge; Neal Lerner - Gay Man; Donna Mitchell - Seth's Mother; Bill Sage - Agent Drew; Peter Maloney - Doctor Jacobs; Siobhan Fallon - Michelle, Harry's Supervisor; Lisa Gerstein - Sheryl; Will McCormack - Mike the Casino Patron; Jon Abrahams - Jeff; Mark Webber - Kid; Eddie Malavarca - Broker; Anson Mount - Broker; Daniel Serafini-Sauli - Steve/Broker; Marjorie Johnson - Abby's Mother; Lucinda Faraldo - Trendy Hostess; Judy Del Guidice - Office Woman; Matthew Saldivan - Series Seven Kid; André Vippolis - Neil; Joseph Tudisco - Janitor; Peter Rini - JP Broker; Jared Ryan - Casino Steve; Don J. Hewitt - Local; Mark Moshe Bellows - John Fineman; Christopher Fitzgerald - Kid; Russell Harper - Kid; Taylor Patterson - Sara Reynard; Raymond Pirkle - JP Broker; Joe Prelow - JP Broker; Ross Ryman - Isaac; Gillian Sacco - Waitress at Mickey's; Serge Skliarenko - Croatian Broker; Seth Ullian - Broker; Carlo Vogel - Rude Kid; Alex Webb - FBI Director; Lori Yoffe - Secretary; David Younger - Marc
Credit
Mark White - Art Director, Roswell Hamrick - Art Director, Pamela Post - Associate Producer, John Papsidera - Casting, Wendy O'Brien-Livingstone - Casting, E. Bennett Walsh - Co-producer, Julia Caston - Costume Designer, Julian Petrillo - First Assistant Director, Ben Younger - Director, Chris Peppe - Editor, Claire Rudnick Polstein - Executive Producer, Richard Brener - Executive Producer, Mary Cook - Hair Styles, Dallas Hartnett - Hair Styles, Charles McKenna - Hair Styles, Paul Kramer - Location Manager, The Angel - Composer (Music Score), Dana Sano - Musical Direction/Supervision, Bob Bowen - Musical Direction/Supervision, William Shackleton Arnot - Camera Operator, Michael Green - Camera Operator, Anne Stuhler - Production Designer, Enrique Chediak - Cinematographer, Suzanne Todd - Producer, Jennifer Todd - Producer, Jennifer Alex - Set Designer, Peter Schneider - Sound Mixer, Mike Russo - Stunts Coordinator, Ben Younger - Screenwriter, Catherine Gore - Screenwriter, Roland N. Thai - Sound Effects Editor, Benjamin Cook - Sound Effects Editor, Toby Emmerich - Executive Music Producer, Lisé Richardson - Music Editor, Louis Russell - Musical Performer, Katisse Buckingham - Musical Performer, Luis Eric - Musical Performer, Kerry Loeschen - Musical Performer, Ric Keeley - Post Production Supervisor, Rita Parikh - Production Coordinator, Emily Glatter - Production Supervisor, Robin Nelson Sweet - Production Supervisor, Joe Barnett - Re-Recording Mixer, Dorian Cheah - Re-Recording Mixer, John Ross - Re-Recording Mixer, Frank Gaeta - Supervising Sound Editor, Alan Freedman - ADR Mixer, Michael Hertlein - Dialogue Editor, Robert Getty - Dialogue Editor, David Grant - Dialogue Editor, Robert C. Jackson - Dialogue Editor, Julian Petrillo - First Assistant Editor, Eric W. Henriquez - First Assistant Editor, Peter Leto - First Assistant Editor, David Lee Fein - Foley Artist, S. Diane Marshall - Foley Artist, Lucy Sustar - Foley Editor, Quentin Harris - Key Hairstylist, Caryn Brotsoff - Key Make-up, Paul Prokop - Production Controller, Carla Fry - Production Executive, Claire Best - Production Executive, Avery S. Brandon - Scenic Artist, Aaron N. Feldman - Storyboard Artist, Thomas Jones - ADR Supervisor, Mary Erstad - Foley Mixer
The film takes a look at the world of "Boiler Room" (seedy, dishonorable, and often fraudulent) brokerage firms. The film centers on college dropout Seth Davis (Ribisi), a budding underground casino owner from Queens, New York, who gets a job at J.T. Marlin, a less-than-reputable brokerage firm. However at the time, Seth is totally unaware of the firm's criminal reputation. Davis' opposition to his disapproving federal judge father drives the plot as Davis goes deeper into the operation at J.T. Marlin than he'd like, learning how the firm scams its clients. The company is a chop shop brokerage firm that runs a "pump and dump", using its brokers to create artificial demand in the stock of defunct companies by cold calling investors and selling them shares at prices set by the brokerage firm, which include a large commission to the brokers (up to three dollars a share for a penny stock). When the firm is done pumping the stock, the investors then have no one to sell their shares to in the market, and the price of the stock plummets. As Seth learns more about the firm, he realizes he needs to get out. When the FBI confronts him, he agrees to help them bring down the firm. Feeling the guilt about the many affluent investors (whales) that he unknowingly lied to and scammed, he tries to help one client who could not afford to be scammed in the first place.
The DVD release includes an alternate ending that implies a workplace massacre by one of the cheated clients.
