Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Crypto Boy’ on Netflix, An Old-Fashioned Drama About New-Fangled Technology

It doesn’t take long to get ripped-from-the-headlines financial stories turned into fictional narratives these days. This fall, a movie about the GameStop meme stock phenomenon (Dumb Money), and Crypto Boy is now on Netflix to tell a tale of the promise and peril of cryptocurrency. While it’s not necessarily based on a true story, it’s not hard to see the connections given the backdrop of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial at the time of release.

CRYPTO BOY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Amir (Shahine El-Hamus) is a delivery boy for his baba Omar’s (Sabri Saad El-Hamus) burrito restaurant in Amsterdam. During a food delivery, he stumbles upon an electrifying seminar by Roy (Minne Koole) of Crypcore Capital. It’s not hard to see through the holes in his rhetorical pitch, which largely centers around leveraging mistrust of flailing institutions to encourage taking a risk on his venture. But Amir’s hooked from the jump and convinces himself of the boundless opportunity available by investing small amounts for large returns, despite his father’s insistence that the way to build a life is through the accumulation of hard work. After Roy catches Amir making a successful pitch to a prospective client, the company’s newest employee quickly finds himself on a growth trajectory … until the inevitable crash and Amir learns who ends up holding the bag for charlatans.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Wall Street for the cryptocurrency set.

Performance Worth Watching: The full rollercoaster of the film’s narrative is something that the audience experiences through Amir, and it’s a good thing that Shahine El-Hamus is capable of conveying each turn of fate for his character. He’s never overdoing the gullibility nor the culpability, maintaining the pose of an earnest striver throughout.

Memorable Dialogue: “They finally understand that hard work is taxed but wealth is not,” Roy observes when explaining to Amir why the Gen Z influencer set is the perfect target for the company. “They just get it.”

Sex and Skin: Amir masturbates in the shower early in Crypto Boy, but it’s behind a curtain so there’s nothing visible. The same cannot be said for a celebratory pool party for Crypcore, at which Amir catches quite a few bare butt cheeks underwater – including an incredibly pale set from a colleague that becomes a running punchline.

Our Take: The overall contours of Crypto Boy are quite familiar as a newcomer becomes ensnared by a business only to grow disillusioned when the capital stops flowing. But the film has a little bit more on its mind than just a standard-issue scammer story. There are many times when the movie feels like it should be focusing more on Amir and relegating Omar to a supporting character in the narrative. But this is, at its core, a father-son story about differing attitudes toward how to build a legacy that ultimately begins to converge around shared notions of valuing people rather than mere profits. The swerve to focus on the personal rather than the political dimension does not feel unnatural, even if it does veer toward sentimentalism and away from confronting swindlers in cryptocurrency or gentrification.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Crypto Boy might not hit the jackpot, but it’s a good enough return on the investment of your time. The timely hook gives way to a much more timeless familial story that proves surprisingly affecting.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.

Watch Crypto Boy on Netflix