All Critics (100)
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Top Critics (22)
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Fresh (69)
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Rotten (32)
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DVD (21)
To put the movie in sales terms, after a good opening pitch, Younger fails to close the deal. The audience can't buy in.
Last reel is particularly disappointing in its naive philosophy, manifest in Younger's rush to bring the various conflicts to satisfying closure.
Boiler Room is a new film that will yank anyone who's ever gotten a cold call from a chop shop.
A vivid demonstration of society's devotion to false ideals.
A compelling movie-going experience.
What cooks about Boiler Room are the details, the ways these guys talk to each other and customers.
Good but mature movie. Not for kids.
Almost liked this one about greedy, young stockbrokers working for an illegal firm, but hated the ending so much it derailed the movie.
...bad films are common enough that it's probably worth making distinctions between the unwatchable and the guilty pleasure.
A skillful and convincing rise-and-fall story.
A confident movie that tackles a worthwhile topic with insight and conviction.
Turns of dialogue ring compellingly true, and the well chosen cast (especially Ribisi) carry the inflections of the drama with some style.
Ribisi does a fine job opposite a typically goofy Jaime Kennedy, a typically sociopathic Scott Cann, and a surprisingly likeable Vin Diesel.
Affleck's first scene is obviously a copy of Alec Baldwin's Oscar worthy cameo from GlenGarry, the only problem being the glaring omission of any acting talent in Affleck's limited repertoire.
Vin Diesel steals nearly every scene he is in as Chris, one of the top earners in the firm and the only one who still has a heart.
An engaging actors' showcase wrapped around a warm and fuzzy morality play. Entertaining and fast-paced but ultimately not wound quite tightly enough to be the thriller it would like to be.
Boiler Room is a new kind of triumph: never has a film been so successfully derivative.
Ribisi is magnificent as a wide-eyed innocent who transitions into a slick veteran pitchman.
Ben Younger, who not only wrote and directed this film, but plays a minor part as one of the traders, has crafted an intense thriller about this often risky business.
Although Boiler Room occasionally feels more like a 60 Minutes expose than a movie, it adds up to a highly watchable, entertaining (though extremely profane) cautionary tale.
Boiler Room grips you early, with its fascinating insights and Younger's appropriation of hip hop music and his snappy, jump-cut-y visual style, and it hardly ever let go.
Perhaps in an attempt to ape David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," Younger's script is proudly profane and goes out of its way to make almost all the major characters thoroughly unpleasant. But Mamet's work had real bite and fire...
Boiler Room's greatest strength is its energy level. Every scene clips along at the pace and energy level of the world in which it's set.
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