Boiler Room (2000)

This is a solid movie. Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) is a college dropout, eager to prove his worth to his demanding father. Secretly he operates an illegal gambling ring in his house. When a new customer comes to play, he convinces Seth to join a shady brokerage firm in Long Island, to get rich quick. He finds immediate success, but clashes with one of his supervisors. He starts to question some of the practices of the company and discovers they are taking money from clients through fraudulent stock trades.

The film shows how aggressively pushing sales can put clients into trouble and that there is usually a catch in get-reach-quick schemes. Although I am interested in knowing more about investing and working in the field, I wouldn’t want to be in a position where I had to convince others to buy a stock. It’s important to remember that individual stocks are unpredictable and diversification is the best option. There are references to the film Wall Street. Several jokes and stereotypes are made about Jews. The term boiler room refers to a business that uses dishonest methods to sell investments.