Ben Younger
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It even features a moment where the top brokers of the firm spout lines from “Wall Street” while watching the movie in a group, and it sums up the movie very well.
Populated by 25-year-old, overnight millionaires who wear their testosterone on the sleeves of their tailored Armani suits, this is an imposing, vigorous and pulsating picture that could have been mighty and portentous if writer-director Ben Younger hadn't cribbed half the script from "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross."
Okay, so it might sound like sort of a generic blend of "The Firm", "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glenn Ross" (dialogue from these last two is actually quoted by the characters!), but it's made into such a tight, tense picture that it's hard not to be completely caught up in it.
Not only drawing its basic theme and plot structure from Wall Street, Boiler Room also draws its best dialogue during a scene in which a number of young stock brokers sitting in one of their sparely decorated mansions, compete with each other to quote lines from Wall Street, whose antagonist, Gordon Gecko, is obviously regarded as an idol within the group.
A few scenes later, Seth is hanging out with Greg and his other superiors at the brokerage firm of JT Marlin--including Ben Affleck as the firm's recruiter and Vin Diesel as top salesman Chris--and just when the "greed is good" vibe can't seem any more reminiscent of Oliver Stone's Wall Street, Younger has the characters actually watch Wall Street and recite Michael Douglas' lines right along with him.
"Boiler Room" is not so much a rip-off of "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" as it is more like the birthchild of those films.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
influenced by Boiler Room (2000)
Plot Themes
His financial wrongdoing — selling worthless penny stocks for outrageous fees (his early misdeeds inspired the 2000 film Boiler Room ) and later manipulating IPOs to earn himself millions — is barely distinguishable from the supposedly legitimate business of high finance, and only shades of nuance render it illegal.
Jordan Belfort's story inspired the indie film Boiler Room in 2000.
Still, considering how familiar this milieu of fast-talking, hard-selling hucksters is from the likes of “Wall Street,” “American Psycho,” “Boiler Room” (which was also inspired by the Belfort case) and “Glengarry Glen Ross,” it’s surprising how lively Scorsese manages to keep things throughout.
As such, there are no big themes here beyond the "greed is bad" credo we've seen in everything from Erich von Stroheim's 1924 silent film Greed to recent Wall Street swipes such as Boiler Room (also based on Belfort's life) to Margin Call.
Exposing the nefarious side of the financial industry isn't anything new -- we've seen it in films from "Wall Street" to "Boiler Room" (also inspired by Belfort's story) to "Margin Call" -- but never have the excesses been this excessive.
This type of territory has certainly been covered before in films like 2000’s Boiler Room (also influenced by Belfort’s story) and even 2011’s Margin Call , but never with such gusto and reckless abandonment.
The movie Boiler Room, which dealt with very similar subject matter, was heavily influenced by this movie.)
Populated by 25-year-old, overnight millionaires who wear their testosterone on the sleeves of their tailored Armani suits, this is an imposing, vigorous and pulsating picture that could have been mighty and portentous if writer-director Ben Younger hadn't cribbed half the script from "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross."
Before Greg launches into his "Always Be Closing" spiel (which Younger lifted from David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross), he says to Seth, "You've seen Glengarry Glen Ross, right?"
"Boiler Room" is not so much a rip-off of "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" as it is more like the birthchild of those films.
Ben Younger's debut film takes a different direction than the references it and its characters incessantly quote ("Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross").
Maybe not, but it's hard not to be taken in by the chutzpah and chops of Ben Younger, whose debut film Boiler Room is an MTV-generation retooling of Wall Street, Glengarry Glen Ross, and The Firm, with all but the last acknowledged in cinematic footnotes.
I like the Rocky movies and I especially like the spinoff Creed.
Like Creed , Ben Younger's film ends not with the usual rah-rah triumph (that occurs one scene earlier), but with a quieter, more reflective epilogue.
The film doesn’t stand up well next to recent boxing sagas such as Southpaw or Creed, which have raised the bar in the subgenre especially when it comes to innovative fight choreography and obligatory training montages.
Most of these have loyally kept to the boxing movie's conventions; only Ryan Coogler's terrific "Creed" had moves of its own (and it was a reboot).
I know the film doesn’t have the budget of “Creed,” but come on.
Last year, that movie was Creed , the remarkably good de facto reboot of the Rocky franchise.
In its unflinching presentation of the sport’s physical toll, it circles Million Dollar Baby .
A cursory check yields a bunch more from recent years, like Southpaw (2015), Foxcatcher (2014), The Fighter (2010), Fighting (2009), The Wrestler (2008), Warrior (2011), Cinderella Man (2005), and Million Dollar Baby (2004), rare for its female lead.
Offerings such as "Million Dollar Baby," "The Fighter," "Cinderella Man" and last year's "Creed" are examples of such pics, and this new film from writer/director Ben Younger can now be added to that list.
From the telegraphed sledgehammer punches of the Rocky franchise to the arty choreography of Raging Bull and its worthy imitators (see the recent Southpaw or The Fighter), movie boxing is a dead-end dramatic proposition, with only three possible outcomes — he wins, he loses, he draws (or, in the unique case of Million Dollar Baby, she loses and then she dies).
Since then, we’ve seen 1980’s Raging Bull , 1999’s The Hurricane , 2004’s Million Dollar Baby , 2005’s Cinderella Man , 2010’s The Fighter , and six more Rocky films (including Ryan Coogler’s Creed ).
There's also a little of Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men in the way Boiler Room depicts the relationships between the men - a false sense of camaraderie overlying deeper feelings of greed and self-centeredness.
If it ever lags, Ben Affleck arrives for what amounts to a cameo, delivering a rip-roaring speech that consists of foul language and offensive observations a la "In the Company of Men" before whipping out of the room, out of the scene and out of the film.
The kind of guy who smiles shyly at the pretty receptionist, Abby (Nia Long: Stigmata ), and knows the value of tender wooing, Seth doesn't belong in a place where Abby is dismissed as a "whore" and "trouble" by Seth's boss, Greg (Nicky Katt: One True Thing, Batman and Robin ), once she trades him in for Seth.
With its cool, deliberate pacing and muted sense of impending doom, "Margin Call" isn't like the showy financial drama "Boiler Room" or Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" movies.
Eschewing the fairly straightforward characterizations (not to mention the slick stylistics and peacock posturing) seen in other like-minded films such as Wall Street and Boiler Room, Margin Call opts instead to show us that there are no heroes and villains, only villains and victims and poor souls weighing the merits of a Faustian bargain.
But Bud's aiming (like Seth) for the quick, easy bucks -- he wants to work for Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas: A Perfect Murder, The Ghost and the Darkness ), who's either a genius financier, if you ask Bud, or a "two-bit pirate," according to Gekko's rival, Sir Larry Wildman (Terence Stamp: The Phantom Menace, Bowfinger ).
Seth (Giovanni Ribisi: Saving Private Ryan, The Postman ) doesn't know this when he joins the firm, though -- he thinks he's taking a job that will earn him the respect of his demanding, hard-to-please father (Ron Rifkin: The Negotiator, L.A. Confidential ), a judge.
Supporting performances from the likes of Nia Long ("The Best Man," "Soul Food"), Ron Rifkin ("The Negotiator," "L.A. Confidential") and Tom Everett Scott ("The Love Letter," "That Thing You Do") are generally okay, but often suffer from underdeveloped and - in the case of Seth's father -- occasionally unbelievable character development.
Okay, I just thought of a comparison: If The Big Short is The Wolf of Wall Street , War Dogs is Boiler Room .
The Big Short is a big stew of other con man movies like Boiler Room , 99 Homes , and especially The Wolf of Wall Street (Margot Robbie even has a cameo).
But Bud's aiming (like Seth) for the quick, easy bucks -- he wants to work for Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas: A Perfect Murder, The Ghost and the Darkness ), who's either a genius financier, if you ask Bud, or a "two-bit pirate," according to Gekko's rival, Sir Larry Wildman (Terence Stamp: The Phantom Menace, Bowfinger ).
Casting Affleck would have paid off had the conflicted, acerbic star of Boiler Room, Changing Lanes, or even Bounce shown up.
Affleck can do dark and tormented when he’s working on a small, emotionally intimate scale, as in "Boiler Room" and last year’s superb "Changing Lanes."
An actor who's always better as an asshole (Changing Lanes, Boiler Room) than as a hero (The Sum of All Fears, Pearl Harbor), Affleck fails to give the role the heft it needs.
They quote "Ross" and "Wall Street" the way young gangsters quote "The Godfather," with no tangible relationship to those films' depictions of anger and fear.
One can easily understand why one would need an analytical brain to be successful, and Ben is more "Beautiful Mind" John Nash than Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" though his story arc follows the same "rags to riches" formula as "Boiler Room" and "Wall Street" where Ben's success has to lead to an inevitable fall as lets it go to his head.
A sometimes-solid actor (“Hollywoodland,” “Boiler Room”) prone to weak movie choices (“Bounce,” “Daredevil,” “Gigli”).
The pumped-up brokers are actors like Vin Diesel (an escaped mass-murderer in this week's "Pitch Black" ), Nicky Katt (one of the rapists in "A Time To Kill" ) and Scott Caan (as the son of James Cann, tough guy roles are in his DNA).
While Vin Diesel ("Pitch Black," "Saving Private Ryan"), Nicky Katt ("The Limey," "A Time to Kill") and Ben Affleck ("Reindeer Games," "Good Will Hunting") do decent jobs in their various roles playing the firm's "bad guys," none stands out.
While Vin Diesel ("Pitch Black," "Saving Private Ryan"), Nicky Katt ("The Limey," "A Time to Kill") and Ben Affleck ("Reindeer Games," "Good Will Hunting") do decent jobs in their various roles playing the firm's "bad guys," none stands out.
Equipped with a superfluous editing style that would be more at home on MTV or in a relatively innocent comedy like 1999's "Detroit Rock City," sticks out like a sore thumb here.