Review of Boiler Room

Introduction

Boiler Room tells the tale of a Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi), a young man who has dropped out of Queens College to run his own private Casino for the students. He’s a whiz with numbers and an even bigger whiz with people but he desperately wants to please his father, a harsh federal judge who disapproves of his sons business. In an effort to please his father (and possibly make tons of cash along the way) he takes a job in a small brokerage house where trainees use every trick in the book to turn cold calls into leads for the senior brokers. Seth is a natural and soon makes his way from trainee to fully fledged broker and the money starts pouring in. He soon begins to realise that his fortune is his clients misfortune as senior brokers are hard selling unsuspecting members of the public mostly worthless stock. This leaves Seth with various moral dilemmas, not least of which the respect he so wants from his father.

The Boiler Room in question is the inner sanctum of a firm of young ambitious stockbrokers for whom the question isn’t “who wants to be a millionaire?”, rather “how many times over do you want to be a millionaire?”.

I knew absolutely nothing about this movie but the cast list had some interesting names on it including Hollywood’s newest hot property, Vin Diesel, from the excellent movie Pitch Black. It sounded mildly interesting although not really my cup of tea but in for a penny and all that.

Video

It’s very pleasing to see so many region 2 releases having adopted anamorphic widescreen transfers as pretty much standard now, and this is precisely what this disc has. Quality wise it’s pretty sharp, not quite up there with the remastered monsters such as Terminator 2 or the recent Hollywood blockbusters such as Gladiator but very good nonetheless. Some of the background shots tended to be a little on the grainy side and I wasn’t 100% convinced about the colours at certain points in the movie but these very minor points aside it’s a very good quality transfer.

Audio

What can be said about the soundtrack of a movie that relies heavily on pure dialogue scenes? Nice talking sounds guys! :). Seriously though you can’t prattle on about the soundtrack much at all. What’s there is fine, what few ambient sounds are present also sound fine. Nothing overly amazing or great about what is here but it was all . . . fine. One oddity is that the soundtrack is listed as Dolby Digital 5.0, implying no Low Frequency Effects channel however my sub woofer was receiving plenty of input throughout.

They could have chosen much better tacks for the incidental music than the ones that ended up in the final movie to be honest. You start to wonder if you’re going to be watching a remake of New Jack City or something.

Features

A few extra features, badged as “added value”, are on offer as well. Apart form the somewhat pointless Cast and Crew information there is also a trailer. On from that there’s a selection of 10 minutes worth of deleted scenes including an alternate ending. Finishing off the mediocre size extras package is a Commentary by Director Ben Younger, Producer Jennifer Todd and Actor Giovanni Ribisi.

Not a bad set of features, if not huge, and the inclusion of the leading actor on the commentary track is a definite plus point.

Conclusion

Right, let’s get the disc summary out of the way first. As a DVD you get a good quality picture with adequate sound and a good set of extras. Now that’s out of the way let’s get on to the meat, what did I think of the movie?

It’s with a great deal of pleasure that I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. For some odd reason the film starts 3 months into the story then shoots straight back to the start after 5 minutes, I haven’t been able to work out why as it seems to serve no purpose but it neither adds or detracts from the movie so I’ll let them off :).

The film starts off reasonably low key, introducing the main character of Seth as a young man with a sharp business mind running a Casino for college students. You are given a background of his relationship with his father then Seth meets Gregg (Nicky Katt), a filthy rich broker who convinces Seth that he has what it takes to make it as a broker. Seeing this as a more decent living that his father would approve of Seth takes up a position as trainee. Once there you are introduced to the rest of the supporting cast including love interest Nia Long as Abby, a few far too brief appearances for Ben Affleck as Jim Young, Scott Caan as Richie the token nut case and of course Vin Diesel as the extremely likeable Chris.

The cast is uniformly excellent throughout it has to be said. Giovanni Ribisi at first looks a little out of place (I swear he looks 12 years old in some scenes and 45 in others) however by the end of the film you’ll have forgotten all about it. Being the leading roll he has the weight of the movie on his shoulders but he carries the weight brilliantly and is very engaging to watch. Nicky Catt is likewise excellent as the super slimey and ultra detestable senior broker Gregg. I don’t know what it is but there is something about Vin Diesel that made him a hit in Pitch Black and again a hit here. He has a certain style about him that’s very hard to pin down but needless to say everyone should look out for this guy, he has a very bright future ahead methinks.

This movie grabs you in within the first 30 minutes and doesn`t let you go. It does this by bullying you with the power of the dialogue and the ferocity of the delivery. The movies pace is also such that you are never given time to catch your breath right through to the end of the film. This film is packed with so many excellent lines, “Anybody who tells you money is the root of all evil doesn`t f***ing have any.” or “The only people making money passing are NFL quarterbacks, and Alan, I don`t see a number on your back.” are but a few. Likewise there are so many brilliant scenes that I am truly amazed that this movie was unknown to me before I received the DVD. Why this movie didn’t receive any major interest I will never know.

The ending is a little flat in comparison to the rest of the movie and there is one point where any into computers whatsoever will sit there and laugh out loud at the sheer implausibility of one scene but by then it’s far too late to criticise a movie that you are totally engrossed in.

I wholeheartedly recommend this movie to one and all.