Boiler Room

A Gen X cautionary tale about greed and impatience, Boiler Room is a smart, sharp-edged, adrenaline-driven movie about the eat-or-be-eaten world of crooked stock trading. Populated by 25-year-old, overnight millionaires who wear their testosterone on their tailored Armani sleeves, this is an imposing, vigorous and pulsating picture that could have been really something if writer-director Ben Younger hadn't cribbed half the script from Wall Street and Glengarry Glen Ross. Giovanni Ribisi (The Mod Squad) plays a Y2K clone of Wall Street's Bud Fox--a deceitful junk stock hawker whose conscience rattles in the dark recesses of his soul as he buddies up to the firm's big shots and begins to learn the dirty secrets behind their success…just before the FBI starts knocking on his door. A flawed but enticing portrayal of high finance as a contact sport, this is a strong optional purchase. (R. Blackwelder)