Lost in Hollywood is a mislead title. Before we were graced by all those young enterprising stockbrokers at J.T. Marlin in the 2000 smash, Boiler Room, we had another game going in this one, originally titled Boiler Room. Yes it comes across as one of those really cheesy B grades of low rank, with some pathetic moments, bad editing, and mostly atrocious performances, save for of course, Estevez, who looks more like a Sheen, the head of this task force, determined to bring these low life scamsters down, the lowest I've seen in this racket. Truly heartless, but real, let me tell you from being a witness myself. A couple of other good or adequate performances, stick out from the bad ones. You'll pick em' don't worry. The worst actor is the one, a young punk scamster, while in handcuffs, being interrogated, shouts out to L.A's finest, "You guys are fu..ed". What these scumbag telemarketers are selling (we've all heard em' over the phone) are what are Morgan silver dollars, 'spose to be worth a lot, but are fake. They lure, mostly old people, into their scam, robbing them of their savings, with the promise of striking it rich, where they end up paying for it dearly. You've seen smarter, slicker, and more discreet operations in Matchstick Men. One guy who's being indited and under investigation, would you believe, goes straight back to work, after being coaxed by a young budding but more vulnerable ex con, (American Guy Pearce looking) who hates his shitty job selling cars. He partners up with him, in this new venture which of course is Silver dollars. Seeing these old people do away with their savings is really heartbreaking to watch in this movie. It's much more affecting here, than you see in others films of this mould. These scenes are painstakingly real, if sickening. What sets this one apart, from a lot of other really bad B dreck, as that we don't deviate from the story. We're really given insight into how this operation works, with no beating around the bush dialogue, which I must say really got me in, really sticking to the business of the movie, where a couple of sex scenes didn't hurt, either. This business side was really the quality I liked here, that shone out from the rest of the film. When renting it, you don't think the movie will go into this nowhere near as it much as it does, it's cover misleading as really you're expecting more sex to be the deviating factor. How wrong you are. If seeing the other Boiler Room flick, and you really liked it, I think you'll pretty much like this one. Actually I like this one better than the later, unrelated, Affleck one. Boiler Room is frank if too real in it's telling of these operators and who they are, scum. The police interrogators and their frustration is all so real too, as are the raid scenes, again all of this more real than other ones, you see in other movies.
