"Boiler Room" avoids the thumping moralism that has made Oliver Stone the least misunderstood director in Hollywood. It's less about selling your soul than about feeling your oats....[The movie] reflects the sensibilities of the generation it holds up to critical scrutiny, and it's a cunningly ambiguous act of self-portraiture. [The Director] presents a world ruled by a gang of lawless, soulless children, like the island of lost boys in "Peter Pan."

"Boiler Room" represents of course a latter-day version of the 1987 film "Wall Street" that also looked at financial market practices. Pre-"Wall Street," one has to go back to 1981 to find another movie about the canyons of finance, the poorly done film "Rollover" starring Kris Kristopherson and Jane Fonda. Movies about Wall Street have historically been difficult to execute without having the end version appear tinny, trite, and over-dramatic. Indeed, "Rollover" was a disappointing flop because of this; "Wall Street" appeared silly and unbelievable in parts; now "Boiler Room" simply shows us the way it is, and we largely accept that this is the way the world works for better or for worse. The cinematic process may have steadily improved at each step, but so too has our willingness to believe in the picture that we see.

Perhaps the mere issuance of "Boiler Room" represents another anecdotal sign that an equity top is either in place or near (depending upon which index one looks at). After all, it is only the third movie in almost 20-years to try to tackle a Wall Street topic, the other two of which both appeared in down equity market years -- 1981 and 1987. In both prior instances, the Fed was tightening rates to squelch inflationary fears, just as they are now.

We may giggle and laugh at the raucous behavior of the "Boiler Room" characters, but the movie also ends far too abruptly to be left with any true sense of closure. Everyone may want to be a millionaire now -- often at any price to their spiritual well-being -- but we still do not know for sure where this is leading us as a society. Perhaps off a cliff.

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