MOVIE REVIEW

Based on a true story but as generically crushing as an office cubicle, “Chasing the Green” is a hopelessly slipshod, witless and repetitive business tale about the rise and fall of two fortune-seeking brothers that director Russ Emanuel can’t even raise to the level of time-killer.

Ross (Ryan Hurst) is the money-grubbing workaholic who makes the pair millionaires but via ethical shortcuts, while Adam (Jeremy London) is the soulful one because he plays golf, has a girlfriend (Heather McComb) to whom he teaches golf and worries -- where else, but on the golf course -- about misusing his passion to succeed. The truth is that both siblings come off as shallow, misogynistic jerks, their ascent hardly as inspiring -- or interesting, since their trade was, no joke, electronic transaction processing -- as the filmmakers believe.

When reliably sturdy William Devane shows up as a zealous Federal Trade Commission investigator, your sincere hope is public shame and jail time even before you learn that the brothers underhandedly gouged clients. But in the movie’s fervidly pro-business eyes, Devane’s character is the bad guy.

It’s an odd economic climate for a movie with an antiregulatory streak, but I suppose even unscrupulous, government-averse capitalists need movie villains too.

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‘Chasing the Green’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Playing: At the Laemmle Grande, 345 S. Figueroa St., L.A., (213) 617-0268.