In the minds of most people, Oliver Stone's 1987 film "Wall Street" is chiefly remembered today for Michael Douglas' frighteningly funny performance as a suave but bloodthirsty trader and for having opened only weeks after the stock market tumble. However, to some young people, particularly those who re-read "The Art of War" regularly and live for sales on Armani suits, the movie is a vital cultural touchstone full of such pearls of wisdom as "greed is good" and "lunch is for wimps." Writer-director Ben Younger's "Boiler Room" would love to be the "Wall Street" of the post-yuppie era, featuring a crew of twentysomething warriors hot on the trail of their first million and willing to do just about anything to close a deal or get a promotion. Unfortunately, "Boiler Room" doesn't have Douglas or anyone like him at its wheel. Instead, Younger gives us Ben Affleck as Jim Young, a no-nonsense pitchman who recruits hungry youngsters into the J.T. Marlin brokerage with promises of endless cash and luxurious living, then all but castrates the kids if they underperform. Affleck appears to have the moxey to pull off the role, but, much to the movie's detriment, he's not the main character. In fact, he's reduced to a glorified cameo role while we're asked to care about shiftless Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) who gave up running daily card games out of his living room to enter the trading world after seeing the Porsches and Ferraris in the J.T. Marlin parking lot. "I was making good money at the casino," Seth tells us in his narration, "but these guys were mackin' it hard." Sadly, Seth soon learns what J.T. Marlin founder Michael (Tom Everett Scott) and his disciples are peddling is not but blue-chip stock but worthless shares in make-believe companies. Didn't he ever stop to wander why the firm had its offices on Long Island instead of in Manhattan? Or why so much paper-shredding goes on after office hours? Perhaps in an attempt to ape David Mamet's shark-eat-shark drama "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, while "Boiler Room" is ultimately a troubled-son morality play (with bad Dad as the villain) dressed up in tough talk and a relentless rap soundtrack. As he proved in last year's fiasco "The Mod Squad," Ribisi, with his blackened eyes and thick tongue, is definitely not hero material and he looks woefully out of place in the company of Affleck, Vin Diesel and Scott Caan, all of whom are convincingly slimy and cold-blooded. With such a cipher at its center, "Boiler Room" wears out its welcome about as quickly as a telemarketer calling during the dinner hour. James Sanford
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