As over-heated as its title suggests though more wasteful of energy than a leaking kettle, 'Boiler Room' at least manages to duplicate the efforts of its characters by promising much but delivering nothing.
Though ostensibly an insider view of Wall Street trading and an explanation of why the word 'stockbroker' has come to rank alongside 'double glazing salesman', the movie actually ducks the subject altogether and instead yields a one-note narrative about a criminal scam practised by a bunch of unappealing yobs who may well have a lifestyle that only the super-rich can afford yet on this evidence appear to exist in an unfurnished house watching TV re-runs of Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen showing how it was really done, way back when.
Such referencing isn't merely embarrassing. Here, it's downright disastrous, for not only is 'Wall Street' plundered to no effect but Mamet's searing 'Glengarry Glenross' is also dragged in, book-ended by dialog that was fresh when Lemon and Mamet handled it but in this outing is tedious to the point of being vapid.
The plot, such as it is, falls down more often than a drunk trader celebrating a Morgan Stanley bonus: the leading character's father is a judge at great pains to protect his reputation, yet makes no effort to check out the provenance of his son's place of employment; the FBI is investigating his son, but no convincing explanation is ever given as to why it should be trying to gather the dirt on him when evidence in abundance exists where every other employee is concerned; the lead character's girlfriend is, or is not, an FBI informer, though it's impossible to care either way; the scam involves the creation of non-existent pharmaceutical companies which nevertheless inexplicably feature in the stocks reporting in the financial pages of major newspapers.
With nothing whatever to hang on to other than a preposterously sentimentalised relationship with his screen father, Giovanni Ribisi struggles hard to make his character engaging, but fails, largely because there's no sense of loss for the audience to share in come the denouement Ribisi's character starts the movie with a Volvo station wagon and finishes the movie with a Volvo station wagon, none of the riches-beyond-imagination to which the movie frequently refers seemingly coming his way.
At a running time of 115 minutes, 'Boiler Room' is 105 minutes longer than a sequence in 'The Sopranos' in which Christopher presides over a not dissimilar operation and his two psychotic henchmen beat up a trader who is actually trying to do an honest job of work.
As 'The Sopranos' achieved more impact with that throw-away sequence than anything managed by 'Boiler Room', it's pretty clear that this is a movie that certainly doesn't warrant any kind of 'buy' recommendation.
Though ostensibly an insider view of Wall Street trading and an explanation of why the word 'stockbroker' has come to rank alongside 'double glazing salesman', the movie actually ducks the subject altogether and instead yields a one-note narrative about a criminal scam practised by a bunch of unappealing yobs who may well have a lifestyle that only the super-rich can afford yet on this evidence appear to exist in an unfurnished house watching TV re-runs of Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen showing how it was really done, way back when.
Such referencing isn't merely embarrassing. Here, it's downright disastrous, for not only is 'Wall Street' plundered to no effect but Mamet's searing 'Glengarry Glenross' is also dragged in, book-ended by dialog that was fresh when Lemon and Mamet handled it but in this outing is tedious to the point of being vapid.
The plot, such as it is, falls down more often than a drunk trader celebrating a Morgan Stanley bonus: the leading character's father is a judge at great pains to protect his reputation, yet makes no effort to check out the provenance of his son's place of employment; the FBI is investigating his son, but no convincing explanation is ever given as to why it should be trying to gather the dirt on him when evidence in abundance exists where every other employee is concerned; the lead character's girlfriend is, or is not, an FBI informer, though it's impossible to care either way; the scam involves the creation of non-existent pharmaceutical companies which nevertheless inexplicably feature in the stocks reporting in the financial pages of major newspapers.
With nothing whatever to hang on to other than a preposterously sentimentalised relationship with his screen father, Giovanni Ribisi struggles hard to make his character engaging, but fails, largely because there's no sense of loss for the audience to share in come the denouement Ribisi's character starts the movie with a Volvo station wagon and finishes the movie with a Volvo station wagon, none of the riches-beyond-imagination to which the movie frequently refers seemingly coming his way.
At a running time of 115 minutes, 'Boiler Room' is 105 minutes longer than a sequence in 'The Sopranos' in which Christopher presides over a not dissimilar operation and his two psychotic henchmen beat up a trader who is actually trying to do an honest job of work.
As 'The Sopranos' achieved more impact with that throw-away sequence than anything managed by 'Boiler Room', it's pretty clear that this is a movie that certainly doesn't warrant any kind of 'buy' recommendation.