Seth investigates further, discovering that the firm's founders are already preparing to abandon J. T. Marlin, destroy the records, and cut ties with their employees to re-brand and start their scheme under a new name, leaving their victims to face a lengthy legal battle without much hope of recovering their money.

Seth shows up at his father's office and tearfully explains that he shut down his casino and went along with a highly criminal line of work that he thought was legal to gain his family's approval.

Although Marty initially refuses due to the risk of losing his judgeship, he calls Seth the next day, reconciling with him and offering to help with the scheme.

Seth is eventually arrested by the FBI for the violation of 26 SEC and NASD regulations, and is brought into their custody along with his father, as the bureau had discovered their IPO scheme from a tape-recorded phone conversation.

The FBI offer him federal immunity if he agrees to testify against J. T. Marlin once all the suspects are brought into court, and threaten to involve Marty in order to assure Seth's cooperation.

He lies to Michael Brantley, the company's founder, by explaining that the firm can lose a lot of money by refusing to continue to do business with Harry Reynard, who Seth makes out to be an important prospect at a make-or-break point.

He seeks a signing from Chris Varick, explaining that he may as well "do one thing right" in helping a severely hit investor make his money back, now that the firm will be raided and, soon enough, there will be no future in continuing business at J. T. Marlin.

[4][5] Younger said he used a speech given by a top broker to the would-be trainees as the model for the lecture the Jim Young character makes early in the film.

[4] Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker and financial criminal who would write The Wolf of Wall Street, claimed that the movie was also loosely based on his rise and fall.

[12][13][14] Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant wrote "Affleck, the best-known actor in the ensemble, proves no match for Alec Baldwin of 'Glengarry,' who played a similar character in David Mamet's look at a phony real estate operation.

[13][16] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and wrote: "Has the high-octane feel of real life, closely observed.

"[16] Emanuel Levy of Variety gave the film a mixed review and said while it "begins extremely well as a saga of greed and conspicuous consumption...it gradually loses its bite.

"[18] Berardinelli praised the attention to detail and said the film achieves "the same sort of insight into stock brokering that Glengarry Glenn Ross offered into sales.