Boiler Room

Boiler Room is a 2000 American drama film with themes of film noir, written and directed by Ben Younger, and starring Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Nia Long, Ben Affleck, Nicky Katt, Scott Caan, Tom Everett Scott, Ron Rifkin and Jamie Kennedy.

The plot of the film is this:

The film takes a look at the world of "Boiler Room" (seedy, dishonorable, and often fraudulent) brokerage firms. The film centers on college dropout Seth Davis (Ribisi), a budding underground casino owner from Queens, New York, who gets a job at J.T. Marlin, a less-than-reputable brokerage firm. However at the time, Seth is totally unaware of the firm's criminal reputation. Davis' opposition to his disapproving father, a federal judge, drives the plot as Davis goes deeper into the operation at J.T. Marlin than he'd like, learning how the firm scams its clients. The company is a chop shop brokerage firm that runs a "pump and dump", using its brokers to create artificial demand in the stock of defunct companies by cold calling investors and selling them shares at prices set by the brokerage firm, which include a large commission to the brokers (up to three dollars a share for a penny stock). When the firm is done pumping the stock, the investors then have no one to sell their shares to in the market, and the price of the stock plummets.

By the end of the movie, the FBI track down Seth and his father. They want him to testify against J.T. Marlin, and he agrees to do this on the condition that they don't get his father involved. They send him to work the next day so he can uncover further information about the company, and for them to raid the place by midday. Seth first lies to the company about his client, Harry Reynard, who lost his life savings, so he can get the money back for him. After he negotiates with the heads of the firm, they tell him that in order to complete the task, he has to get a ticket sale signed by a senior broker. After the negotiation, he uses a floppy disk which contains files of cheated clients, and sends them to the FBI. Seth then goes to find Chris and attempts to persuade him to sign the ticket. Chris is enraged that the FBI have tracked down Seth, as well as to figure out about their raid, which is soon to be staged. Seth eventually persuades him after telling him that the firm turned honest people into liars, and for Chris to "do one thing right", he must sign. He eventually signs as Seth departs.

In the end, Seth narrates how different things might have been. Seth walks out of the building and makes his way to his car, narrating his work experience after he dropped out of college. He concludes by stating that he won the lottery and he must soon find a job. In the background, several cars are seen pulling in to the parking lot, and as Seth leaves, FBI agents get out of the cars ready to raid the place.

The DVD release includes an alternate ending that implies a workplace massacre by one of the cheated clients.

Tropes used in Boiler Room include:

• Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity: Inverted. Seth attempts to have coffee with Marty, but it's Marty (the father) who quickly gets annoyed and leaves.
• Bland-Name Product: Averted. Seth goes to work for J.T. Marlin (seemingly a stand-in for J.P. Morgan), but later in the film, actually encounters some of Morgan's brokers.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Seth manages to get out from under criminal prosecution by cooperating with the Feds, but the movie ends just as Federal agents storm J.T. Marlin after Seth walks out, leaving it ambiguous exactly what happened to Chris and the rest of the company, or if any of them got away.
• Did Not Do the Research: At one point, Seth is asked to copy an entire HDD onto a single floppy disk. Good luck with that.
• Dinner and a Show: When Marty starts yelling at Seth and throwing Seth's custom poker chips at him.
• Family Honor: Marty is constantly worried that his son's illegal living-room casino will endanger his own career as a judge.
• Heel Realization: Seth checks around and not only discovers the stock he's selling is bogus, but J.T. Marlin has lined up other office space to use if/when they're busted.
• Jerkass: Greg.
• Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: Greg explains to Seth that the firm never sells to women. The stated reason: Women will constantly complain to and harass the broker over the stock's performance. The real (if unstated) reason: Men will often be more reluctant to admit they've been conned and go to the police.
• Meaningful Background Event: During the scene when Seth and Abby are talking in the car, you see the FBI agents pull up and start walking over (to arrest Seth) in the background quite a few minutes before it actually happens.
• Moral Myopia: In the end, Seth convinces Chris to "do one thing right" and sign a ticket sale making one schmuck client good by stealing from another anonymous buyer on the market.
• Nouveau Riche: When Seth visits Jim's uber-spendy Mansion, he finds it barely furnished, with a tanning bed filling the elegant dining room; Seth internally remarks that Jim obviously has no idea what to do with his expensive house.
• Pet the Dog: During the group interview, a new recruit sits in Jim Young's seat. Young walks in and politely asks him to move. When another recruit calls the first one a dumbass, Young angrily orders the second guy out of the room, and offers his seat to the first guy.
• Precision F-Strike: "Hey, Kid: GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"
• Shout-Out:
  • Early in the film, Seth and the gang watch a scene from Wall Street, complete with Chris and Michael acting out the parts.
  • Later, Greg specifically references Glengarry Glen Ross when training Seth. Ben Affleck's introductory rant to the new trainees is also an obvious send-up to Alec Baldwin's One-Scene Wonder in that film as a foul-mouthed real estate salesman.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Seth, when he goes to work for J.T. Marlin.