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Review by Susan Granger
3 stars out of 4
If you've ever responded to a telephone solicitation, be
prepared for an eye-opener! This disturbing, cautionary story about a
stock scam takes you into the infamous "boiler room" where
twentysomething millionaires are made overnight. They're Gen-Xers who
want the adrenaline rush of easy money. So when Seth, a 19 year-old
college dropout played by Giovanni Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan),
realizes that his father, a judge (Ron Rivkin), has caught onto the
illegal casino he's been running out of his Queens apartment, he's
recruited into the inner sanctum of a fly-by-night Long Island
brokerage firm named J.T. Marlin (a name chosen because it sounds like
J.P. Morgan) by Ben Affleck (Dogma). After a glimpse of his boss's 355
canary-yellow Ferrari and an eye-popping indoctrination, he becomes a
stockjock-in-training, learning how to hustle unsuspecting investors
over the phone. "Never pitch the bitch," he's instructed, meaning that
women ask too many questions. Seth's a money-hungry natural - glib and
greedy. And he enjoys hanging out with his foul-mouthed cohorts -
"They could sell bubble-gum in the lock-jaw ward in Bellevue" - not to
mention the firm's enigmatic receptionist, Nia Long, his "chocolate
love." But soon his insatiable curiosity gets him into trouble with
the law, as he discovers exactly how his colleagues are getting richer
as their customers are getting poorer. First-time writer/director Ben
Younger was intrigued by the remarkable statistic that one out of
every 36 working Americans is a millionaire, so he created this
timely, high-wire drama about today's mega-fortune-hunters. On the
Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, Boiler Room heats up to a searing,
shocking 7. Just remember: when a stranger calls, trying to sell you
stock, hang up!
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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