These days, few things are hotter than
the stock market, and everyone who isn't making a killing on
Wall Street is feeling very left out. Of course, for every
millionaire secretary who struck it rich by buying low and
selling high, there are stories of men and women with the
opposite fate - but, in the midst of an economic boom, we
never hear about them. Likewise, for every honest stock
broker who works 18 hour days to boost his clients'
portfolios and inflate his own commissions, there are those
who toil in so-called "boiler rooms", where the workload is
no lighter, but where few (if any) buyers come out ahead.
Those who work in boiler rooms are
participating in scams that routinely break SEC regulations
and bilk investors out of huge amounts of money. Boiler room
employees are the ultimate high-pressure salesmen. They do
all their work on the phone, promising untold riches,
confiding ultra-confidential "tips", and preying on the
investor's greed and fear of missing out on a great
opportunity. "No" is not in their vocabulary, and the only
way to get rid of them is to hang up on them. Ultimately,
the commodity they are offering tends to be worthless - some
of the companies they sell stocks in don't exist. Boiler
room brokers have two goals on any given day: make as much
money as possible and avoid being arrested.
The lure of quick money is what attracts
Seth Davis to the boiler room of J.T. Marlin, a "chop shop"
brokerage firm located on Long Island, not on Wall Street.
For all of Seth's life, he has wanted only two things: to
become a millionaire and to earn his father's respect. In
his quest to attain the former, however, he has endangered
his chances for the latter. A 19-year old college drop out,
Seth is running a small-time illegal casino out of his
apartment - a business that his dad, a New York City judge,
disapproves of. So, in an attempt to go legit, Seth joins
J.T. Marlin as a trainee. But, even as he's on the fast
track to wealth and success, he suspects that everything may
not be on the up-and-up, and his conscience begins to prick
him when he realizes he is cheating hard-working family men
out of their life's savings just to earn himself a few
thousand dollars in commissions.
Three movies immediately come to mind
while watching Boiler Room, two of which are openly
referred to within the text. There's Oliver Stone's Wall
Street, which is a source of inspiration for the men of
J.T. Marlin (they all know the dialogue by heart), and
Glengarry Glenn Ross, from which they get some of their
office terminology (like "ABC", which stands for the motto,
"Always Be Closing"). 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. These people live and breathe money; they
don't have time for real relationships. Seth's attempts to
re-connect with his father and to develop something
meaningful with Abby, the firm's secretary, indicate that he
really doesn't belong where he is.
There's a familiarity to the attitudes
and ideas encountered here. As Seth notes, too few of us
want to work hard for our money; instead, we seek the quick,
easy path to excess. Also apropos, however, is an old
proverb: "If it seems too good to be true, it is." And that
simple adage encapsulates a philosophy that no one in this
film has learned.
