Film Analysis: Boiler Room (2000)

Film Analysis: Boiler Room (2000)

What causal or motivational factors explain why the main character in the film crossed the line to engage in a series of serious white-collar crimes? (Include both micro- and macro-level variables in your explanation and be sure to discuss the micro/macro connection between these two sets of variables.)

In the film Boiler Room (2000), several key causal and motivational factors, macro-level and micro-level alike, help to fuel the main character Seth Davis's economic and psychological motivations to break the law, by selling bogus stocks at a shell company for huge commissions. Seth, a basically likeable guy, but also an extremely acquisitive; impatient; status-conscious young college dropout, feels driven, at the macro (societal) level, to have lots of expensive "toys," e.g., a Ferrari; a huge expensive house, a closet full of expensive clothes, etc. For example, during the voiceover lead-in to the film, Seth is heard musing about "87 million dollar lottery winners"; "child actors that get 20 million a film," etc. Also, when the movie opens, Seth, clearly a young man in a hurry to succeed financially without working very long or hard is already busy running an illegal casino inside his house. Thus, the stage is set, given Seth's current illegal occupation, for him to continue breaking the law, especially if a more lucrative money-making opportunity should arise.

At the micro (personal) level, what drives Seth the most is that he wishes for his upper middle-class family, to finally be proud of him. In particular, Seth yearns to somehow gain the respect of his father, an undemonstrative, emotionally distant federal judge, whom he loves very much, but with whom he currently has a very strained relationship. Seth's father seems the opposite of his son; he has become successful in life by working hard at his profession and by doing things the right way, legally and ethically. As the movie begins, Seth's father is demonstrably disappointed in everything Seth himself has done in life so far. For example, Seth has quit college, but has continued receiving his student loan money, without telling any of this to his parents. Thus, his father now knows that Seth has been operating unethically and in secret. Now, as Seth's father tells him at dinner, once Seth arrives (late) to his parents' suburban home one evening, he himself knows, from someone in the community, about the illegal casino Seth is running inside his house. Further, if that became public knowledge, it could cost his father his hard-earned reputation, not to mention his judgeship itself.

However, (at the macro level) Seth actually considers himself quite successful in his illegal casino endeavor. After all, at the macro level money is his main (actually his only) motivation. Still, as he later admits to himself when he is alone again, with his girlfriend, it hurts him deeply that his father disapproves so strongly of all he has done in life. Seth's macro-level and micro-level motivations are at war; on one hand, at the micro level, he yearns for his father to be proud of him. But on the other, at the macro level, Seth does not want to work hard for a living, or to wait for the spoils of life until he has really earned them, which his father has done. Seth's macro-level motivation, for quick, easy money, even if dishonestly obtained, eventually wins out over his desire to make his father proud.

Next, as Seth is thinking all this over, he happens to be visited at home (in his casino) one night by Mike and Richie of the "J.P. Marlon" artificial stock brokerage, which operates somewhere outside Manhattan. The top-of-the-line yellow Ferrari the young men arrive in, and all of their ready cash (Richie wants to place minimum bets of $500 a hand at Seth's casino) feed into Seth's macro-level fantasies of living the good life without waiting or working very hard. "J.P. Marlon" is nothing but a shell game. There are plenty of signs, right from the beginning, that J.P. Marlon is just that, most of all the fact that Mike and Richie are both only Seth's age, but already have so much more cash than even he does from running his illicit casino. Once Seth looks outside his front door and sees Mike's "ride," nothing else matters. From that point on, he is basically putty in Mike's and Richie's hands, so great is Seth's wish for wealth, the sooner the better. His macro-level fantasy makes him forget entirely about his micro-level desire to legitimately earn his father's respect, through hard work and real professional achievement. Therefore, Seth is easily recruited to the "boiler room" at J.P. Marlon.

The micro-macro connection within Boiler Room (2000), which causes Seth enormous "cognitive dissonance," e.g., internal confusion in a psychological sense, is that Seth still feels that if he can only earn enough money, and earn it fast enough, he will both be able to both live his material fantasies and earn his father's respect. .

2. Identify the various victims of the white-collar crimes portrayed in this film. (Who were they? What was the nature and extent of their victimization

What type of law enforcement practices were or should have been (guardianship) in place to discourage or prevent crimes like this from happening?

There are many, many victims of "J.P. Marlon's" shell game, financially, socially, psychologically, emotionally, and in terms of family relationships. Most of them, in fact, are never even named or showed in the film. For example, every time someone buys a stock from this high pressure shell company, the price of that stock is artificially driven up. Mike, who owns the bogus stocks (of companies he has created out of thin air, just like J.P. Marlon itself), immediately then sells his own stock in that company, before anyone else can do so, thus sending it plummeting downward, and leaving his own investors holding the bag.

The most pathetic of Seth's victims (although by no means his only one), is Harry, a married man in about his mid-thirties, with a non-working wife and two small children. Harry is saving for a down payment on a house. One day Seth (by now a successful boiler room salesman) calls Harry out of the blue (this is how all prospective customers are called; these are carefully-selected, always male customers, with incomes of about $150,000 per year) into investing his and his wife's only savings of $50, 000 in a shell company J.P. Marlon is artificially pumping up today. Predictably by now, once Harry and all the rest buy in, that stock soon plummets, and Harry is out his house money. All of this comes as a horrific surprise to Harry's wife, who packs up herself and their children and leaves him, alone and weeping, inside their apartment.

There is also a doctor in the film who becomes one of Seth's financial victims. In the end, even Seth's own father becomes a victim of his son's illegal stock-selling activities when, after fighting with Seth, he makes a conciliatory phone call and offers him help. What neither Seth's father nor Seth himself know at that time is that, courtesy of Seth's girlfriend, who also works for the company and helping the Feds, Seth's phone is tapped, and the Feds are about to close in.

Law enforcement practices that should have been in place within the scenario depicted in Boiler Room (2000), to help prevent crimes like this from happening, should have included a stronger financial crime division at the local police force level. After all, boiler rooms like "J.P. Marlon" do not operate in cyberspace or by mail order; they operate physically, in some local jurisdiction. If the financial crime division of the police department where "J.P. Marlon" operated had been, more pro-active against this shell company (and, by association, others of its same type), the Feds could have been tipped off much earlier, so that these white collar criminals could have been stopped much sooner, and had fewer victims of their fraudulent scheme.