Well, here in Houston, we are still under a Stay-at-Home order. So, I’ve been doing much of what the rest of the country is doing, watching Netflix. On the menu for today – the movie “Boiler Room” and steaks. It happened to be an awesome day outside so I took advantage of the weather and decided to grill. Nothing like kicking back on the weekend with a good movie and good grub.
“Boiler Room” is told and narrated, by Seth Davis, (played by Giovanni Ribisi) a young college dropout who runs an illegal gambling game out of his apartment. It’s fairly successful, but his dad, a judge, finds out and admonishes him telling him to make an honest living.
By chance, Seth, meets an old friend who is a broker at a small brokerage firm, J.T. Marlin and is invited to interview. It’s actually a group interview lead by, Jim (played by Ben Affleck) who’s introductory monologue rivals Alec Baldwin’s, Always Be Closing speech in, “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
At J.T. Marlin, no experience is necessary. In fact, they don’t want it as they “…don’t hire brokers here — we train new ones,” Jim exclaims. This is an important point the viewer won’t be aware of until later in the movie.
As the new broker training picks up, Seth learns quickly under the mentorship of the firm’s senior brokers, Chris (played by Vin Diesel) and Greg (played by Nicky Katt). This training involves the heavy pressure sales tactics and how target “whales” to sell stocks to.
It seems almost to good to be true, as Seth learns, his firm pays much better commissions to the brokers than other larger and more established firms.
Unfortunately, the house of cards is about to take a tumble. After Seth’s curiosity gets the better of him, he uncovers the truth about the numerous stocks sold by the firm, and realizes that J.T. Marlin is no more than an elaborate ‘boiler room’ operation.
A “boiler room” a scheme in which salespeople apply high-pressure sales tactics to persuade investors to purchase securities, including speculative and fraudulent securities.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/boilerroom.asp
Even though Seth is no stranger to backroom scams (he used to run a highly-profitable yet illegal card game out of his home), this revelation leads to a crisis of conscience. Seth reasons that, as opposed to his previous illicit dealings, as a broker in this ‘chop shop’, he is offering his customers something they don’t want and can ill afford. Unfortunately, this is the least of his worries, as elements in law enforcement are equally aware of the truth about J.T. Marlin.
Overall, I thought it was a wonderfully paced movie. This one is in my top 5 of financial industry movies and I believe I’ve seen it over 10 ten times now. 2 Thumbs up from the my2cents guy!
My Two Cents 