New dud stashed in 'Boiler Room'

By Leslie Boxer

For The Daily

As many college seniors know, the fast-paced, high-stakes, big bucks atmosphere of Wall Street is alluring. Both investment banking and stock brokerage firms take the best and brightest college graduates and make them rich - what's not appealing about that? Writer/director Ben Younger's "Boiler Room" identifies with society's interest in making money and making it fast.

The movie has been lauded as an updated, younger, slicker version of "Wall Street" and in many respects that is true. Of course, much of the praise seems to be self-induced: Younger draws from the success of both "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" and includes references to both throughout the movie. It's as if Younger's characters grew up watching these films and aspired to be Charlie Sheens their whole lives. "Boiler Room" even offers a scene in which the characters have to take turns reciting lines from "Wall Street."

Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi), one of these "Wall Street" admirers, is a college dropout who opens the film with a voice-over telling the audience about his lust for money and fancy toys. Immediately the audience is connected to the film; we all desire many of the same things that Seth does and it is easy to identify with his big dreams of millions and one of the movie's themes - greed.

Seth's father (Ron Rifkin) is a disapproving federal judge, who upon hearing that Seth was running a 24/7, seemingly lucrative, casino out of his Queens apartment, motivates Seth to find a better job. Luckily, one of Seth's back-alley card game patrons lets him in on the secret of J.T. Marlin, a "chop shop" Long Island stock trading firm that is guaranteed to make him his first million within three years. It sounds pretty good and even respectable enough to please Seth's father.

What Seth finds at J.T. Marlin, beside a parking lot full of Ferraris and Porsches - making his Volvo look insufficient, is a fraternity of rich, arrogant, Italian suit-wearing all male idols. Seth gets taught the ropes and soon becomes one of the boys. Seth's transition into a J.T. Marlin success is, luckily for the audience, mirrored by his use of hair gel to slick back his mane. By the time that Seth realizes that things at J.T. Marlin are a little less than kosher, he is a slicked back version of the other fast-talkers in the boiler room. Needless to say there is corruption at the center of J.T. Marlin and it consumes Seth's character.

The characters that Ben Younger has created are flat and trite. The brokers at J.T. Marlin are one dimensional, stereotypic versions of the religious or ethnic group that they are intended to represent. All of the brokers are similar, part of which is intended, and uninteresting. Seth's character, which Giovanni Ribisi plays well, is more complex than the others are, yet its complexity is built on a completely contrived and ridiculous father-son relationship.

Seth's father is disapproving and Seth desperately seeks his father's approval (have you heard that one before?). Their entire relationship is focused on an incident that happened when Seth was ten years old. Seth's father is solely concerned about making sure that Seth does not embarrass him or cost him his judge-ship. Actually, the only time that Ron Rifkin changes his tone from his "Seth don't be stupid" voice is when Seth says that he is willing to go to jail in order to save his father's job. The whole relationship is stale.

The film is good for rental or possibly even as a matinee but otherwise it is not worth the cost of the ticket. If you are intrigued by the riches and excitement of stock trading and investment banking read "Liar's Poker" you'll find out that the glamour is accompanied by a lot of long hours.

Courtesy of New Line Cinema

Giovani Ribisi stars as an up and coming stock broker in "Boiler Room."