Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) is a business-savvy college dropout who pays his way through college by running an illegal casino from his rented apartment. Driven by his high-powered father’s (Ron Rifkin) disapproval at his illegal existence and his desire for serious wealth, Seth suddenly finds himself seduced by the opportunity to interview as a trainee stock broker at JT Marlin after being head-hunted by soon-to-be colleague Greg.
One of the best scenes and performances I have ever seen is when Seth invited to a realistically aggressive group induction/assessment from Jay (a cameo appearance from Ben Affleck) that sets the tone for a firm, clearly placing money above absolutely everything. For the record, I know how realistic this scene is as I have been privy to one or two of these in my career.
Seth soon finds his feet and things are going well, his fractured relationship with his father and flirtatious glances from love interest and JT Marlin secretary Abbie (Nia Long) are enough to keep him motivated in his new found career, as are the Gekkoesque promises of corner offices, expensive cars and apartments and girls.
After initially finding his feet, he begins excel and develop a love for the hard sale and high commission and the realisation of all those promises becoming a reality – this takes him down a path where a few chance encounters lead Seth to question the legitimacy of the firms operations – placing him once again at odds with his father and what remains of his morality.
Gordon Gekko would be proud of this bunch, trained by Ben Affleck who lives the Gekko creed from Wall Street of ‘greed is good’, however, this crowd could never get in Michael Douglas’s front door, remember what a hard time Charlie Sheen had in Wall Street.
These guys are the minor leagues of the same sport and Seth soon finds out was living more honourably as a casino entrepreneur, but he can’t get out mainly because Dad seems to have somewhat changed his attitude due to the fact Seth, as far as he is concerned has a regular paid job and like most of us, all he wants is his father’s love and respect.
Boiler Room works best during the scenes with Rifkin and Ribisi, their up and down relationship is the key to the whole film. Other performances to watch out for are Nia Long as the secretary and Seth’s love interest, clearing 80k per year because of her insider information, Vin Diesel as a cheery hedonistic sort of crook, and Nicky Katt as a more intense variety of the same breed, Tom Everett Scott also plays one of JT marlin’s hierarchy exceptionally well.
As I have stated earlier, the one to really watch out for is Ben Affleck. It’s a small part, but Affleck does wonders with it and of all the employees at JT Marlin, you feel it is he who could really have made it in Gekko’s world.
This is one of those, that many of my friends have not seen as it pretty much went under the radar, I’m glad I managed to catch it, as it is one of my favourites – I highly recommend it.