Don’t expect Ben Affleck to be the star. His high-powered speeches as the J.T. Marlin sales recruiter spice up the story, but he is really a tangential character. We are not entirely displeased by this because, generally, we are not impressed with what Mr. Affleck brings to his films. His dearth in Boiler Room may have been a blessing.

Though it explores the world of a mythical stock selling boiler room (a place where phone banks are set up to make sales calls), don’t expect this film to even closely deliver the character depth and despair of Glengarry Glen Ross, a 1992 cinematic exploration of a resort real estate scheme.

In Boiler Room, Seth Davis is pressured by his father to quit the illegal gambling business he is running out of his apartment and to prove himself a man of success and integrity through a legitimate career. Seth, however, wants to earn a lot of money. He is excited about the prospect of proving himself to his father and becoming rich by joining a trainee program at an investment firm whose traders are millionaires in their twenties. He learns the trade well and begins to feel the taste of success and riches when he notices odd contradictions in the firm’s practices. He quickly finds himself in a mess that will not be easy to rectify.

On a positive note, the film delivers a revealing insight into the dynamics of phone sales confidence scheme to promote phony IPO’s (Initial Public Offerings) and inflated expectations for huge profits from stock investment. We have never personally received a stock sales call and doubt that the boiler room would have stayed in business as long as it did with its clearly fraudulent model, but anyone who has ever received a sales call and felt intimidated will recognize the emotions that come with the seduction and hammering from a high-pressure sales scammer.

Though the big name star power of Mr. Affleck was little present, the main players, Giovanni Ribisi and Vin Diesel, provided captivating characterizations that might have proven brilliant in a better story. As Seth Davis, the new recruit drawn from his illegal home casino, Mr. Ribisi expresses emotional and psychological dimensions of greed and disregard for the welfare of others as well as softness that is hardly suited for the environment of unlimited unscrupulousness he is entering. His talent truly shines in scenes with Ron Rifkin, a wonderful actor who plays Seth's father. The two go through a touching father-son conflict and reconciliation.

Ultimately, Vin Diesel is Boiler Room’s greatest underutilized asset. His charisma is far too powerful for the supporting role of Seth’s ally Chris because his mere presence in a scene casts a shadow over everything else. Unfortunately, the character of Chris is just too underdeveloped.

Generally, Boiler Room is confused about its direction. Two-thirds into the movie, it seems to forget what it’s about. Just when Seth begins to realize the foul play he’s been a part of, his moral challenge to set things straight is squashed by the sudden FBI involvement. The agents come in to rectify the wrongs and strip Seth of the smarts and the guts to do what’s right. With this inability to complete the character arc by the action of the protagonist, the film is robbed of its dramatic power and its intention is betrayed. Even the poignant resolution of the father-son conflict, which helps Seth realize the full impact of his wrongdoing, cannot save the derailed plot.

 Another example of a wasted set-up is Seth’s growing romance with the lovely secretary Aby (Nia Long). Just when the relationship reaches significant emotional involvement of both characters, it is disrupted, and then completely dropped. Such an elaborate set-up demands a lot better than that.

Many scenes in Boiler Room are played out to the heavy, testosterone driven rap soundtrack. Choreographing the scenes to the beat of the music might be the key to selling music videos, but in a movie with as demanding a theme as Boiler Room’s, it seems way out of place. Maybe, there is an intended irony in contrasting real and wannabe white millionaires with the sounds of urban anger and macho chest thumping, but it was a sad and ineffective waste of time and effort.

Boiler Room missed a unique chance to deliver a powerful message about the traps of the blind pursuit of money. "Anyone who tells you that money is the root of all evil doesn’t have any," are the memorable words of Jim Young. Money isn’t necessarily the root of all evil, but the blind pursuit of money, especially at the cost to others, just might be. In a fictional world of movies, those who fall victims to their greed and act in complete disregard of the pain they cause must pay a heavy price, or they must push themselves beyond their limits in order to rectify their wrongs. Boiler Room tries to have it both ways and disappoints in the end.