United States, 2000Cast: Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Ben Affleck, Jamie Kennedy, Scott Caan, Ron Rifkin, Nicky Katt, Nia Long, Taylor Nichols, Tom Everett Scott
Director: Ben Younger
My Rating: *** / ****
"Reco!"
For Seth Davis (Ribisi), a 19-years-old college-dropout, a job promising tons of cash would surely had its appeal. Seth had run an illegal casino in his house, and it makes profit but it has made the relationship between him and his father (Rifkin), an allegedly legal attache - which is bad already - worsened. And so, when Seth offered to become an on-job-training in a stock-consultant firm company, JT Marlin.
What he doesnt' know was that everybody who worked on JT Marlin were on a boiler-room. Usually, people who worked on such firm would work no less than 18 hours-a-day to boost their client's portfolios whilst in so called "Boiler Room", the employees work over the phone, promising an untold-riches, providing confidential "tips", and ultimately preying on the customer's greed and fear of missing one hell of a chance. In short, what they're doing is nothing more than just a scam.
Our hero, Seth, of course doesn't aware at first to the business-practical that the JT Marlin had done on a daily basis. All he ever knew was that whenever he found a potential stupid rich man who would blindly investing his money to something unknown and unheard of (they called him "pope"), he would scream out of his lunge "Reco!!!!!" and that's when every senior broker would run to his desk to made the final 'sell'.
Curiosity kills the Cat
A talented salesman to begin with, Seth was quickly raised the ladder. He made a good money, up to a point where he doesn't need to open his casino anymore (it loses money anyway), his relationship with his father was getting better, and to add more drama to it, a cupid had decided to come to his side. But that's when curiosity kills the cat.
At first, he's just simply curious as to how come the comission on JT Marlin was higher than those of the opposing firm. He only utters his curiosity to one fellow-worker who he trusts best Chris (Diesel), who happen to takes a liking to Seth. Well, he'd be more like a brother to Seth in the end. And then a series of unfortunate events follows. And the truth was emphasized by the fact that his father knows about JT Marlin and gave his son an ultimatum, "Dont talk to me again, ever!". And that's when the world crumbles beneath his feet.
Talk is Cheap
This movie involves two of my favourite things to happen on a movie. 1. It relies heavily on dialogue. I always love movie that relies heavily on talk, instead of explosions. And this movie owned a lot - since its frightening resemblance - to David Mamet, my second favourite screenwriter (only second to Charlie Kauffman). And that was all the reason it needs. 2. It's about scam. Nothing intrigues me more than to see people getting double-crossed, people getting scammed on the screen.
It also had an effective deliverance of the emotion that came to Seth. One particular shot was when Seth involved greatly on one customer he thought as a "pope" at first but it turns out to be just a regular poor-guy. We were brought to the poor-guy family, and how does the scam that had been done by Seth was literally took the family apart. So intense.
And on the end, the movie's conclusion was nothing sort of great.
Scene Stealer
I've got no problem whatsoever with the casts. Vin Diesel gave a more than decent performance here, as Seth's "big-brother". And Giovanni Ribisi thought that this movie was his first adult-performance, it delivers, even though it rather hard to accept Ribisi as JT Marlin's brightest star at the second-half of the movie. But, i've got to admit that the scene stealer on this movie was Ben Affleck. He took the role that Alec Baldwin's took in a David Mamet's Glengarry Glenn Ross. Ben was on screen for only two scenes. And he could really convince me on both scenes. And if i was on a Seth's shoe, i would definitely be moved on by his speech and took the opportunity to work on a scam JT Marlin blindfoldedly. Really, this is his best performance that i ever saw of him.