Boiler Room is a fast-paced thriller that takes the viewer into the heart of a New York trading room.

College drop-out Seth (Ribisi) becomes a hotshot young trader, who wants nothing more than to be a millionaire by the time he's 30.

He is taken on by stockbrokers JT Marland, based an hour away from Wall Street but who still use the same dictatorial methods of training the junior traders and lack all moral values.

Seth is thrown head first into the 'boiler room' - a seething mass of suits, sales pitches and scams.

Soon he begins to notice that his colleagues are made millionaires overnight by sweet-talking, cajoling and abusing bemused punters into buying dubious or non-existent shares.

What he doesn't realise is that the FBI are onto the company and are using him as a subject to track and eventually bring in for questioning.

Seth must make a decision about whether to turn in his colleagues and sacrifice his enormous salary or keep stealing people's money and lining his own pockets...

Hollywood thrillers are most often associated with murdering or thieving criminals in an underworld of crime trying to evade the authorities.

These criminals are affluent, well-educated middle class yuppies who drive sports cars and wear designer suits.

Their lives are dominated by greed and material gain.

The casting is superb. Ben Affleck, Vin Diesel, Nicky Katt, Scott Caan, and Jamie Kennedy all play the slick trader boys with style and a convincing arrogance.

Ribisi maintains a certain innocence throughout his time at the rogue firm, which lends him a likeable and alluring presence.

The high-pressure working environment is portrayed authentically and engulfs the viewer in conflicting feelings of disgust and admiration.

The verbal (and often physical) brutality of the workers is intense and frightening.

The actors all excel in this role in director Ben Younger's debut feature.

While the film's dramatic centre is clearly in the midst of the telephone brawling of the 'boiler room' itself, the most powerful moments are the scenes between Seth and his father (Ron Rifkin), who struggles to express his love for his son.