Ben Affleck is on the current cover of GQ, dripped — nay, ensconced — in various shades of Tom Ford, mounting a promo offensive.
No real revelations, but once the convo swerves into Ben’s checkered early aughts filmography, our DunKing explicitly shouts out Boiler Room as one of the “good” ones.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Back when Tommy was shaving Gucci logos into pubes, former Yeshiva student Ben Younger was dropping his cinematic debut — a scrappy, self-assured fincrime thriller with a distinct POV and an insane ensemble of young actors.
Giovanni Ribisi? Nia Long?!? Nicky Katt hive, stand up.
I caught it at a pre-release college screening (in the NYU Stern School of Business basement lol) and by the time Pharoahe Monch boomed over the closing credits, we all had a new favorite movie.
Go Violets!
The animating principle — money as seductive / destructive force — and core archetypes — fathers, sons, brothers, feds — could work in any era. But as a time capsule of hyperspecific tri-state knuckleheads and pre-9/11 StarTAC period detail, Boiler Room stands alone.
If you’ve never seen it, go watch immediately.
And if you have, here’s Affleck stomping a mudhole thru his monologue again.
Walking past Stern the other day (itself now ensconced in purple anti-protest barricades), I thought about all the folks who must have taken that speech at face value, just as the Boiler boyz turned Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” into karaoke fodder.
I wondered if anyone sitting next to me at the preview is currently in a Mar-a-Lago group chat…
Then asked myself if it’s time to re-watch Telemarketers.
TL;DR, the movie holds up.
It has none of the post-Matrix camera flare fuckery of its contemporaries; if anything, Boiler Room feels aesthetically closer to a ‘70s drama than anything else from the year that gave us McG and the Traffic filter.
And sadly, its subject matter is more relevant than ever in our dumb, dumb Manosphere of crypto scams, “hustle culture,” and a general acceptance of shameless, money-grubbing venality in all its forms — though in fairness, that last one’s pretty evergreen.
So where art thou, film bros? Nary a peep about BR celebrating a quarter-century of existence. No lovingly assembled 4K reissues, no rep room screenings, no oral histories... Gio’s going hard as a cinematographer these days, what gives?
Younger followed it up with a neurotic rom-com, an apparent stretch in director jail, and a very good boxing flick starring Miles Teller and Aaron Eckhart. He recently helmed two episodes of The Vince Staples Show while blogging passionately about small aircraft.
I would like more than three pictures in two decades from this guy!
But I get it.
No disrespect to the Toretto Cinematic Universe, but I’d like more real movies from Mr. Diesel, too. Something that builds on the promise of his subtly soulful Boiler Room performance, or 1995’s fantastic, self-directed indie short Multi-Facial.
Happy to take Vin’s Kojak, though.
Who loves ya, baby?
Playlists updated…