Overall Rating
 Awesome: 22.96%
Worth A Look: 48.15%
Just Average: 25.93%
Pretty Crappy: 1.48%
Sucks: 1.48%
13 reviews, 57 user ratings
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| Boiler Room |
by Ophelia13
"I'm just waiting for 'Boiler Room 2: Attack of the Boom Microphones'"
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Is it too much to ask that a theatre be able to line up the movie you're supposed to be watching before the opening credits? I suppose I shouldn't be complaining, I could see the little legs walking across the pavement...it was just that the legs were on top of the screen. Separated by the little line you see in cartoons, the head and feet were seemingly moving simultaneously, but one can never tell when the voice of our narrator is overshadowed by the tapping of his shoes on cement.After my little friends in the projection booth got their act together, we had a whole new problem. I first noticed it peeking down from the top of the screen a little way into the plot development. Then, there it was again, shocking me with it's brazen disregard for the audience. Over and over it came, wobbling in and out of camera. Let me just say that when the boom microphones have more screen time than the protagonist, someone needs to be fired. And I don't mean just a little black spot popping up here and there. I mean the boom, the mike, and the operator's minuscule talent just dangling there, waiting for all the world to laugh in the face of all that air above the boom and in his head.
At least there were no old people whispering (read: talking hoarsely at the top of their lungs) for as far as the eye could see.
Seth is a college dropout who runs a card house from the lower level of his property. He makes good money, but he suffers from that one problem that plagues so many -- unsympathetic parents. Actually, his mother is great and supportive even though her son will be getting hauled off to prison if he continues his current career path. But his father...oh boy. Not only is he angry that Seth dropped out of college, he won't accept that he's actually succeeding in a business. Plus, he's the sort of father who, after being stunned by the sight of his son lying on the ground with a broken limb, would slap the boy.
To please his father, Seth decides to take a job offer. This job offer will take him up the ranks of and brokerage firm in no time at all. He goes for it, and the position at JT Marlin is his. Of course, he's just a trainee to begin with, and must learn how to truly screw people over. At the firm, screwing people is an art form. They do it in so many ways it's impossible to get past them. They'll confuse you, so you don't know your head from your ass, then take your money. They'll sweet talk you, and take your money. And best of all, they know how to do it so that you think that a) it was a wonderful idea to do business with these fine people and b) that you actually enjoyed getting screwed by them. It's all so graceful, and so damn cool that you forget that you're supposed to feel bad for the people who are getting cheated. It seems as though they deserve it.
As a thriller, "Boiler Room" fails miserably. As a drama, it's quite a bit better. With a few jokes about "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" you sit there just positive that Ben Younger watches way too much TV. But it works, and he manages to get a cast that makes it work. Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Ben Affleck and Nia Long pull out performances that while not excelling, do their jobs really well.
The movie originally seems dominated by its soundtrack, but fades into the backdrop in time to tell us a story.All in all, what we have here is a good movie with really good acting, and one hell of a boom microphone.
Encore.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=1715&reviewer=130
originally posted: 02/21/00 02:59:03
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USA
18-Feb-2000 (R)
DVD: 04-Mar-2014
UK
05-May-2000 (15)
Australia
12-Oct-2000 (M)
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