Boiler Room

BOILER ROOM

Rating: C+
If you thought Ben Affleck had a major role in this movie, raise your hand. I know I sure did, based on the theatrical previews. But the reality is his role is minor and one-dimensional; the kind of throwaway role usually termed a "walk-on part." So much for truth in advertising. (You can put your hand down now.)

The real star of Boiler Room is Giovanni Ribisi, an entrepreneuring college dropout who runs a backroom casino from a rented house in New York City. To placate his overbearing father and pursue wealth and materialism the legitimate way, he joins the investment firm of J.T. Marlin with visions of becoming a stock broker. As he and a platoon of similar young recruits learn the ropes from senior brokers Vin Diesel and Nicky Katt, Ribisi begins to fear something sinister lurks beneath the surface.

If you think this sounds like a hybrid of Wall Street and The Firm, you're not far off. Were this film a rock album, the critics would be crowing how those other films were "major influences" on the band. The film even acknowledges the Wall Street influence, with a lengthy scene where the guys are watching it and quoting every line from memory.

I got a strong feeling watching Boiler Room that this was writer/director Ben Younger's first time at the helm. All of the classic novice mistakes are evident. Ben Affleck's previously mentioned role ("I'm gonna make you all millionaires") is as clichéd as they come. But it's presented as if the writer thinks it's a brilliant revelation, indicating he's inexperienced (or possibly Stanley Kubrick). Similarly, the film opens with one scene and then flashes back three months prior to actually begin its story. In retrospect, this structure adds absolutely nothing to the film, and the opening scene could have been deleted altogether. The temporal hijinks are there merely as a gimmick; used by a director more concerned with imitating Quentin Tarantino than with telling his own story. But the most egregious foul this film commits, and again, one typical of young filmmakers, is the failure to recognize the good things the film actually has going for it. The most interesting aspects of this movie are the senior stockbrokers played by Diesel and Katt. Theirs are the only characters in the film with any depth, but instead of examining their characters further we're handed a couple of superficial lines about their lives not being all that great. Then extensive screen time is devoted to Ribisi's affair with the secretary at the firm, and each time the two are alone the narrative practically suffocates. Even worse are scenes with the guys hanging out in a bar and getting into conflicts with other patrons. Of the three separate such incidents portrayed in the film, none of them lead anywhere. The entire film frequently exhibits a lack of focus, as if the director never stepped back to view the whole picture he was painting.

That's not to say there aren't some good moments. In one clever scene, Ribisi is called at home by a telemarketer hawking newspaper subscriptions. Ribisi responds by giving the guy lessons in effective salesmanship. In another, the entire brokerage office comes to a standstill as everyone watches Diesel pitch a stock over the phone to a reluctant doctor. As Katt says elsewhere, there's a sale made during every phone call. Either you've sold the customer on why he needs to buy stock, or he's sold you on why he shouldn't.

Toward the end, the plot becomes hopelessly muddled. First, Ribisi seems to be hatching one scheme, then in the next scene he appears to be doing something else, and it's never made clear exactly what his planned course of action is. This waffling continues right up to the film's end, which is a disaster in itself. "Abrupt" is probably too gentle of a word - it's almost as if the main character was cut off in mid-sentence. After much posturing, events seem to be leading up to a conclusion where we'll see how everything turns out. Then the credits suddenly appear, the lights come up, and the audience is left looking around at each other in confusion. About as satisfying as the TV going on the fritz just before Final Jeopardy.