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Title: Boiler Room
Region: One
Genre: Drama
Stars: Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Nia Long, Nicky Katt, Scott Caan, Ron Rifkin, Jamie Kennedy, Taylor Nichols, Tom Everett Scott, and Ben Affleck
Writer: Ben Younger
Director: Ben Younger
Feature length: 120 minutes
Extras: Feature Length Commentary Track With Writer/Director Ben Younger, Producer Jennifer Todd, and Actor Giovanni Ribisi, 5.1 Isolated Music Score With Commentary By Composer The Angel, Deleted Scenes, Theatrical Trailers, Cast And Crew Film Credits
DVD-ROM Features: "Script-To-Screen" Feature, "Are You Boiler Room Material?" Quiz, Theatrical Website
Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English Dolby Surround 2.0
Subtitles: English Captions
Packaging: Snapper Case
Chapter Stops: 32
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo Surround Sound
Year of Theatrical Release: 2000/DVD Release: 2000
Theatrical Distributor: New Line Cinema
Home Video Distributor: New Line Home Video
MPAA Rating: R
Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera
While I was earning my Masters Degree I had a friend who dropped out of college and worked in a "Boiler Room" like outfit for at least a year if not longer. Contrary to the movie, he is not a millionaire, but he did earn enough to go back to college and finish his degree and then some. I remember being envious of him because to be honest, I did my BA and MFA back to back and while there are advantages to doing the Masters thing back to back, I was also depressed because I had little to no money, was working my butt off in school, and here was this friend of mine who dropped out, seemed to be doing great financially, and eventually was working out of his apartment trading as well as working in one of these "Boiler Room" type places in New York somewhere. I thank God that I stayed in school because my friend burned himself out to a point where he dreaded doing the whole broker thing. Though he made a lot of money, he claimed to never have the time to enjoy it because he was always working trying to makes those sales. So in the end, he returned to school, earned a degree in teaching, but decided afterwards that all he wanted was the diploma and now he has Federal Job and lives comfortably.
So I was particularly interested in seeing "Boiler Room" because I almost followed my friend out of college to try this and I wanted to see how accurate the film was as compared to what I was told by my friend. Being a native New Yorker, I love to see a film that actually uses my home city instead of someplace else too. Here it is very important as well because there is a certain pace and attitude that New Yorkers have for better or for worse, which I think attracts the type of characters that do these sorts of things for a living.
The film depicts the transformation of Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) who runs a small time casino out of his apartment and joins a Long Island brokerage firm that specializes in the hard sell at the buyer's peril in no small way. Seth's motivations lie in trying to win the approval of his father on one level and to increase his own sense of self worth on every level he believes is important at the expense of almost losing his soul. Ben Affleck appears in a role that is an homage to the film version of "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Boiler Room" itself is an example of art imitating life imitating art since the characters all recite the "Gordon Gecko" character from "Wall Street" as if they were reciting a mantra and there is no doubt in my mind that despite whatever morality tale Oliver Stone was trying to present with Charlie Sheen as the protagonist, everyone got stuck on to Michael Douglas like magnets to metal and the Best Actor Oscar he won for that role did not hurt reinforcing the ideal that "Greed Is Good" for many people.
New Line Home Video's DVD Edition presents "Boiler Room" in a reference quality 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio. The colors never bleed, the skin tones are perfect, and there are no signs of grain or compression artifacts present. The Soundtracks include stellar English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Surround 2.0 audio options and English Captions encoded too. The music by The Angel is nicely mixed with the important dialogue and ambient atmosphere that are absolutely necessary to bring this high pressure world of "Boiler Room" to life as close as possible without actually being there.
Two feature length audio commentary tracks are included as well. One features commentary by Writer/Director Ben Younger, Producer Jennifer Todd, and Actor Giovanni Ribisi. It is screen specific and gives insight into how the idea for the film came about, the research, and the background of all three as it related to what attracted them to the project among other things. The second commentary track is actually an isolated 5.1 Music Score with Composer, The Angel, contributing his ideas for the musical choices used in the film.
In addition to these features, New Line's "Boiler Room" DVD also features five short deleted scenes presented with practically the same picture quality as the feature with Dolby Surround Sound. The outtakes are short, but they do not appear to add anything important to the story so they are a nice extra to check out, but the film does not suffer at all without them. There is an alternate ending among the scenes that was wisely changed because of the "coincidence" factor just starts to appear more contrived despite any objections some might have to the contrary.
The film's theatrical trailer is included along with trailers for "Love Jones" and "Friday" under Nia Long's film credits. The Cast and Crew Film Credits section itself is quite extensive and the menu screens feature some slick slot machine like animated transitions between the interactive still menus.
Also included on this dual layered DVD are some DVD-ROM features that include the "Script-To-Screen" feature that allows viewers to compare script pages and storyboards to actual scenes from the film, a trivia game, and the theatrical website with links to New Line's Hot Spot website.
Overall, "Boiler Room" is another great standard DVD release from New Line Home Video that is definitely worth seeing. It will be available on home video and DVD Tuesday, July 11, 2000.
© Copyright 2000 By Mark A. Rivera