Boiler Room

Rating:
Summary: Visit this Room
Review: Reciting lines from "Wall Street" hasn't been funnier. A group of phony stock brokers make their first million in three years according to Jim Young (Ben Affleck). In a tutorial on becoming a successful stock broker, you must have no heart or soul. Sell, sell, sell is the bottom line. Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) was the new kid on the block and exposed the truth behind the boiler room. Vin Diesel was cussing again and it was hilarious. Don't accept calls from salespeople, they truly are evil.

Rating:
Summary: So real it's scary
Review: Turns out you don't need guns and car crashes to make a macho action flick. This movie does it all in an office where everybody wears suits. But there's so much testosterone oozing out of their pores it could be a Rambo film if you closed your eyes. And the way the actors pounce on their clients, there isn't enough left for a buzzard after they're done tearing into said clients.

This movie deals with the world of high-pressure selling for stock brokerage firms. These companies still exist, even after Enron, 9/11, and the stock market meltdown, but were thriving even more before all this happened. Their tactic is to hard-sell customers on stocks for various new companies. Only those that make the sales get the riches. It doesn't matter that the stocks are from faltering, or worthless companies, you'd better buy, and buy a lot if they call you.

So it's not surprising that after our hero (Ribisi) gets caught running a casino in his dorm room, it's here that he turns to for "legitimate" employment. At first he goes with the lifestyle, and even becomes good at it. By movie's end, though, certain characters see the harm they do to their suckers, er, clients, and certain characters have to make choices on how to proceed with their lives. Others will have this choice made for them.

This movie is scary in that it really shows how these high-pressure salesmen work. They wear suits, but they are the shiny sharkskin types that Billy Crystal in "Analyze This" mentioned could be used as mirrors. So this brilliant piece of costuming tells you exactly what kind of people you are dealing with. Vin Diesal in a suit, in a very good performance, looks just as menacing here as in his later roles. And it's this portrayal of people who can mentally suck your blood out that make it a very scary, but very good movie to see.

Rating:
Summary: Unexpected Great
Review: Honestly i only watched this movie for the vin factor and ended up loving every moment of it. it's a twisted story of money and power. this underworld sucks in seth davis and turns his world on end. trying to break free form the "troubled" image that his dad sees him with, seth joins the broker firm of JT Marlin. seth learns how to con ppl from their money believing that they are "whales." (rich ppl that can afford to lose a buck or two) only when seth forgets his breifcase and stumbles across someone shredding paper does he think about what may be wrong with the perfect life that these men have created for themselves. with help from nicky katt, nia long, and vin diesel this movie is one for any wall street lover/hater.

Rating:
Summary: "Do you know what 'bridge financing' is?"
Review: Do you care? And those who DO care probably know enough about the subject to realize that it's an unfit subject for a movie. The characters in Ben Younger's *Boiler Room* know what bridge financing is, and much else: using rat-a-tat-tat monologues and dialogue, they spew an endless stream of financialese comprehensible only to stock brokers. Writer-director Younger works under the large assumption that if we're bright, or hip, or whatever, we'll be able to follow along. Maybe, maybe not . . . the bigger question, of course, is if we'd care to. But Younger, aware that many GenY nitwits don't know what an "IPO" is, throws in some gratuitous violence (one broker beats another one almost to death at a bar for no good reason), fast cars, and loud music to keep everyone's eyes from drooping. (Unfortunately, no sex scenes with the hottie love-interest, Nia Long.) The story involves the late-90's generation of stock-brats at a brokerage that sells stock in phony companies. Our conflicted "hero" is Giovanni Ribisi, pale as a sheet. He looks as if he's spent too many years holed up in the Actors Studio, what with all his half-audible Method mutterings, and requires some sun and fresh air. There's a subplot involving his relationship with his father -- he wants his daddy to love him, the poor baby -- that's strictly Amateur Night at the Movies. Finally, Younger is brave enough to acknowledge the movies he has stolen from (*Glengarry Glen Ross* is mentioned; *Wall Street* is quoted), but such honesty doesn't nullify the theft. Indeed, the director is as crooked as his characters.

Rating:
Summary: Hidden Gem
Review: At first glance, this morally complex film seems to be merely uninteresting, but by looking at the cast alone, it warrants a second glance. Ben Affleck, Vin Diesel and other familiar faces appear in this film.

Somewhere between the lines of right and wrong lies reality. This movie is a realistic portrayal of one man trying to make money and learning that there is no such thing as the easy way. Caught in a web of lies, he struggles to find his way out of...

THE BOILER ROOM

Rating:
Summary: wall street for dummies
Review: As a trader myself this movie is an insult to the finance industry if its objective was to portray it.
This movie borrows its concepts from the false impression that trading is all about extremely ruthless hungry young college drop outs who are going to be "millionaires in 3 years exactly after the day they start" yeah right....
Furthurmore, it is full of unidimensional characters who are portrayed as greedy, ruthless and violent.

This dvd maybe mildly amusing to those whose knowledge of the industry is minimal...but please, making those silly references to Wall St by means of taking off lines from Gordon Gekko is cheesy and outdated....
The whole idea of how the brokers make money in this movie is a joke...it involves cold calling small investors and selling them shares that arent listed yet....(would anyone actually fall for that? paleez)
whats more? hows this for dialogue..
"sell 20 shares" (customer)
"your done" (broker)
hello, dosent the customer want to know the price???

Rating:
Summary: The best buisness film ever
Review: This movie is great, everyone should see it and own it. It has great acting and the plot is very good, and the script was very well written. The story will realy grab you and you will love it. This movie will make you want to become a broker. This movie also has some tight cars (ferraris?). This movie will really move you. It's one of my favorite movies. I gaurantee you will like it.

Rating:
Summary: A Sleeper
Review: Every now and then you stumble on to a movie that makes you wonder how you missed it in the theater. This is one of those movies! Excellent Cast! Excellent Story!

Rating:
Summary: The follies of corporate greed
Review: This movie is about one thing...making money. As Seth Davis states at the very beginning, he doesn't want to help the world, he doesn't want to contribute to society, he wants to make money and lots of it. Every day he sees people making millions of dollars, and he "wants in".

The movie provides great insight into the slimy world of stockbroking. Seth Davis is roped into a stockbroking firm known as JT Marlen. Once inside, he finds that they will do anything to make a sale. Morals are flung aside and they use every pressure tactic available to close their sale. The movie provides powerful insights into human nature and its tendency to gravitate towards greed and avarice. Watching the movie makes you realise that there are many things worth a lot more than the dollar.

I really can't fault this film on any points. Powerful cast, powerful performance, powerful lessons. Watch it!

Rating:
Summary: Rating depends on what you want to get out of it
Review: Hollywood loves Wall Street firms as they give movie producers real life drama of greed, deception, sex and all the excesses. Boiler, Room, staring Vin Diesel, Ben Affleck, Giovanni Ribisi & Nia Long, is a tale of the deceptions found in the stockbroker game, specifically with really slimy, shady operations that trade in illiquid penny stocks and leave their clients holding the bag 99% of the time. Their sole goal is to make money at the EXPENSE of clients. This stuff actually does occur in today's age so there is a bit of reality within the drama.

I bought the DVD, having rented it already, for the following reasons.

1) The soundtrack is great.

2) Great Actors - fan of Ribisi and Diesel

3) The movie accurately depicts the shenanigans and salesmanship that some firms do. All of Wall Street is about sales. It is about ringing the register because that is what generates nice, fat bonuses but this movie clearly talks about how these people understand people and their emotions.

4) I used to work in the investment industry and I love seeing the slick willies go to work. This is plain fraud in the movie but some brokers, at reputable firms, can really lay it on!

The core plot of the movie is about Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi), a 19-year-old college dropout who strives for approval from his father, a judge who is horrified that his son operates a 24-hour illicit casino. When an old friend visits the casino with a fellow broker, Davis is impressed by their wads of money and yellow Ferrari, and decides to join the firm. In no time he's making sales and settling into the groove of the office and all the after-hours perks, but the dream fades when Davis discovers the scam that is making all of the brokers wealthy beyond their dreams. This is not the antisocietal havoc of Fight Club, but the more deliberate mayhem that comes from greed run amok. The testosterone-junkie brokers of J.T. Marlin (the only female in the office is Abby, the receptionist and love interest, played by Nia Long) are out to make the sale, and whether that sale is legal or ethical doesn't matter...