Boiler Room (2000)

Genre: Thriller, Drama, & Crime

Starring: Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi

Rotten Tomatoes: 67%

IMDb: 6.9

On Netflix Streaming: No

Summary:

In this drama that explores greed and corruption in American business, Giovanni Ribisi plays Seth Davis, an intelligent and ambitious college dropout who runs a casino in his apartment. Eager to show his father that he can succeed, Seth lands a job with a small stock brokerage firm. He is given a space in the company's "boiler room," where he makes cold calls to prospective clients. As it turns out, Seth has a genuine talent for cold calling, which gains him the approval of his superiors, the admiration of his father, and the attentions of one of his co-workers, Abby Hilliard (Nia Long). However, the higher up the ladder Seth rises, the deeper he sinks into a quagmire of dirty dealings, until he's breaking the law in order to keep his bosses happy and his paychecks coming. The Boiler Room also features Tom Everett Scott, Scott Caan, Jamie Kennedy, Nicky Katt, and Ben Affleck in a cameo as the headhunter who brings Seth into the firm. Ribisi and Scott also appeared together in That Thing You Do; Ribisi was the drummer replaced by Scott, who then led The One-Ders to fictional pop stardom.

My Thoughts:

I first saw this movie when it came out 12 years ago. Since then I've watched it probably 5 or 10 times. It has a very unique plot and anyone interested in crime movies, or drama, should find this movie enjoyable. Ben Affleck is the director, and if that sounds like a joke, he recently directed "The Town," which was beyond a great film. This was one of Vin Diesel's first movies and it is one of the few good ones he's starred in, in my opinion. As most of the people reading this are probably business majors, the movie will interest you even more, since it's about a rogue brokerage firm. If you've been following the other films I've blogged about, this one is most similar to In Bruges.