Customer Reviews

Margin Call

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Having been the victim of corporate downsizing more than once, I was immediately engaged with this propulsive 2011 corporate drama from the beginning as Stanley Tucci's character, a seasoned risk management executive named Eric Dale, is told in a coldly indifferent manner that he is being laid off after 19 years with the same unnamed Wall Street firm. It's a piercing yet dramatically economical scene that perfectly summarizes how bloodless the corporate world can be, and in first-time writer/director J.C. Chandor's effort set on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis, it is very cold indeed with 80% of the trading floor being let go. As Dale is escorted out of the building, he hands a flash drive to his prodigious assistant Peter Sullivan and tells him to take a look at it and "Be careful."

Once Sullivan analyzes the data, he realizes the universal gravity of Dale's warning - that the firm is so over-committed to underwater mortgage-backed securities that the total potential loss exceeds the firm's total market capitalization value. In other words, the projected scenario means the firm will soon owe a lot more than it's worth, and the market will be on the verge of an apocalyptic meltdown. What happens after this discovery is a series of sharply intense clandestine confrontations with each level of higher-ups recognizing the ramifications of the inevitable disaster, each one far more nuanced in character than we are used to seeing in films from Oliver Stone about greed and immorality. Blessedly, Chandor doesn't stoop to the customary stereotypes in this corporate cage match, but what he does manage is capture the moral compass underneath each player by way of a cast that really delivers the goods with powerfully implosive performances.

Zachary Quinto (Star Trek) is initially at the center of the plot as Sullivan and performs well enough in the constraining, semi-heroic role, but the veterans really stand out here beginning with Kevin Spacey, who effectively plays against type as Sam Rogers, a genuine company man, the seen-it-all head of the trading team who rallies what's left of the trading floor with corporate brio but then faces his own cross to bear struggling to commandeer a fire sale of worthless assets dumped on unsuspecting clients. The other standout is Jeremy Irons, who masterfully resuscitates the cool cunning of his Claus von Bulow from Reversal of Fortune as the acerbically survivalist CEO John Tuld. He handily controls the boardroom scene with cutting humor and hostile precision. One of the film's more pleasant surprises is Demi Moore in cool, brisk form as Sarah Robertson, the top risk officer and lone female executive who knows her career is at stake with the discovery of this folly. Tucci is excellent in his smallish role as Dale and gets to show off his resigned character's engineering aptitude with a brief monologue about building a bridge.

Comparatively less impressive but playing their more predictable roles fitfully are Penn Badgley as Sullivan's younger, overtly money-obsessed colleague Seth Bregman; Paul Bettany as Dale's nihilistic, snake-oil salesman of a boss, Will Emerson; and Simon Baker as the most morally despicable executive of the bunch, Jared Cohen. Mary McDonnell has a brief and frankly unnecessary scene as Rogers' ex-wife, and I didn't even recognize the usually hilarious Broadway personality Susan Blackwell as the hatchet woman in the opening scene. There are a few flaws with Chandor's observant screenplay, for example, the overly analogous scenes of Rogers dealing with his dying dog and a rooftop scene that plays up Emerson's nihilistic nature too predictably. In addition, some scenes play either too murkily or too clinically to achieve the precise dramatic effect they should. I think the absence of a musical score also contributes to the sterility of the proceedings. However, as a first-time filmmaker, Chandor more than impresses with his deft handling of such a zeitgeist moment with the Occupy Wall Street protests gaining understandable momentum right now.

Up-front warning: there are no exploding cars, steamy sex scenes or "You can't handle the truth!" catch-phrases in this remarkable movie. Don't get me wrong, I like that type of movie, but this is something different. It's a drama, not a melodrama. It's a reality show about actual reality, which unlike most reality shows, usually moves along in an orderly fashion.

If you've never been a manager in a serious company, it might not appeal to you. As an ex-software company exec, I can say it felt real to me. I found the story exciting, because I could relate to the characters and their understated pain. Many things are shown, rather than stated. For example, they work all night long in their suits, but no one ever talks about going home, or the hours, etc. If you've been in a management crisis and experienced a long hellish night, you'll feel this movie in your bones.

The best part was the placement of the viewer in the shoes of the company execs. Imagine your place of work for 20 or 30 years going down in flames around you. If you are a teacher, imagine the school is going to close at the end of the week forever if you make the wrong choice tonight. Every kid in your school will never be educated if you fail. The only way to possibly save yourself and your students is to lie your ass off. That is not a fun place to be, and that's the tension behind the film.

On a final note, I didn't sense an overt political viewpoint from the filmmakers. I didn't feel this was a hit-piece on Wall Street or anyone else. It was dramatized and probably shrunken down in time-scale, but quite believable. I found that refreshing.

I saw a Kevin Spacey interview where he claims the practices in "Margin Call" are still going on today. This review contains some early plot synopsis for those who may have some trouble with the Wall Street jargon. The film appears to be about a fictional investment firm at the start of the 2008 financial crisis.

The drama opens with an investment bank downsizing. An outside agency has been hired to do the layoffs. We see sad scenes of people being tapped and escorted out. This company laid off much of its middle level management layers and kept the worker bees. Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), a big boss is visibly upset. He has a bottle of Pepto-Bismo on his desk. His Chocolate Lab is dying. Spacey is spending $1,000 a day to keep his dog alive. While he appears to be reviving his role in "Horrible Bosses" we later find out he is our closest thing to a good guy.

One of the laid off mid-level bosses, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) hands off a thumb drive to Seth Bregman (Zachary Quinto) who burns the midnight oil going over the data. Bregman panics at the numbers. The volatility index (VI) indicates the company will incur losses that will greatly exceed its total assets. The firm goes into panic mode. The company holds bad assets known as derivatives which is nothing more than pieces of various risk mortgages lumped together. If they attempt to dump them all, without buying, people will suspect something is up and won't buy their assets. If they wait too long to dump them, the fear is someone else will figure out what is going on and beat them to the punch. They are between the proverbial "rock and a hard place."

This sets the wheels in motion as the CEO is notified that the company may collaspe.

Penn Badgley views their job as legalized gambling. They make $250,000 a year crunching numbers and think their bosses who make $2.5 million a year are obscenely overpaid. Jeremy Irons plays the stereotypical CEO who doesn't seem knowledgeable about their product.

Now in spite of the fact this is dealing with issues beyond most people's lives, everyone one of us knows the results of an economy crash. The actors did a superb job holding our interest in the film as each person handles the stress differently.

What will the investment firm do to survive? As things get ugly, the drama becomes more interesting.

F-bomb, no sex or nudity. Rare film that has strippers and Demi Moore in which she is not one of them.

The only guy who knows that the company is screwed just got laid off. This begins a compelling drama based somewhat on the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. To be clear, this is not a thriller and it's not a fictionalized retelling of the Lehman collapse. It's a conventional drama. And most of the story takes place in a single building.

The film dramatizes what the executives did in the 24 hours after they realized they were sitting on billions in worthless assets. "So, what you're telling me is that the music is about to stop and we're gonna be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism." That's the big cheese played by Jeremy Irons. He concocts a scheme to dump the assets on unsuspecting buyers within a single business day. His underling opposes the idea. Kevin Spacey plays the underling and he's pretty awesome.

People who liked "Glengarry Glen Ross", which was a film based on strong performances and sharp dialogue might like this film. Otherwise, the film might just look like a bunch of talking heads. The movie examines the behavior of people in a crisis and their motivations. The most memorable lines comes from Jeremy Irons: "It's just money. It's made up. Just pieces of paper with pictures on it, so we don't have to kill each other to get something to eat." I didn't like the way the movie ended. But I guess it's true to life that way.

Having been a wall streeter for most of my professional life I can say that this film gets it right it gets right the firing, it gets right the way in which people are so disconnected, so self serving, it gets the way many young misguided college graduates think of wall street. I started working in the 1990s on wall street at a time when Risk Management meant something and at a time when firms like JP Morgan out of 23 wall was leading risk management with risk metrics and most of us coming out of great Universities with technical degrees were welcomed, albeit heralded as the saviors of the new age of finance. Sadly we believed it and so did the rest of the world including key people in the administration "Summers" defended our new financial engineering products so much so that even in light of the near collapse of LTCM they said that we had it right. Why do we believe that we can dilute ourselves? Mass delusion I say. And I say it again we must be mass deluded. As an insider working in Private Equity who never lost his job after the financial crisis I have to say three things. One that the movie I just saw is very accurate narrating what did happen,as to which firm it was portrayed in the film? well that I wont say, not because I cant say but because it isnt for me to say but what I can say is that it isnt the obvious one it is not Lehman. Second is that the movie reflects on something that it is amiss among our society which is the lack of what we call Humanity and common sense. Third is that I totally understand why people feel the way they do about us wall streeters, we have not lived up to the expectations or rather, we have. Lastly I can say that we all have to live up to a higher standard one where we think of the better choices that we have to make and i hope that this film gets people to thing about what those choices are. No one wants to go home after a long career or a short one feeling that they have just sold their soul or realize that they did a long time ago. Finance and Econ are important parts or our society The management of limited resources is a key function for our leaders to help us perform and us too. When doing so, we should not over rely on esoteric financially engineered products we should challenge those who structure them to create products that truly benefit us in the long term, and in order to do so we need to think Long term, just as men like Steve Jobs did when he thought about innovation beyond him, hence the title of this review, Long Term Capital Management LLC. Its margin call time....

i've seen the inside job,(excellent) and too big to fail,(kinda thought they made wall street almost look sympathetic in it's insanity) but this movie kinda explores it from a different side than the before mentioned. it kinda pinpoints the zero point of the (2008)calamity to a small group of excellent actors, and it unravels in a blunt way about three quarters of the way through when the "solution" is decided, that quite consicely sums up walls streets attitude toward anyone but themselves.

i had no idea what the movie was really gonna be about, and unlike inside job or too big to fail it keeps it's scope very narrow, and very focused on the specifics of the begining hours or the calamity. casper the ghost(from priest, a beautiful mind) does a great job, as does kevin spacey, and the guy from hero's was surprisingly convincing.
and i watched it twice.

i gave it 5 stars cause 1)it's bound to be underrated 2) acting's great and really excellent, (the begining scene of a manager getting fired, he just sits listening, but his face is so expressive) and 3) the flow is really great. there weren't any moments of "oh god how much more" or "hmm...could've done without that lengthy collage of pensive faces."
obviously if you're not interested in the subject, maybe zonk out to captain america(i'm not judging, probably watch it myself someday) but if you're into it, check this out.
very, very cool.

I am a fan of the mostly dialogue and little action type movies. Not many get made these days so when one comes along I salivate like Pavlov's dog. Margin Call is a fictional drama based on some of the real life events we saw mature in the 2008 economic meltdown. We are still reeling from this mess in 2011 and we will all be paying for the incomprehensible foolishness and cronyism for many, many, many years to come. This movie makes characters like Wall Street's Gordon Gecko look like a street beggar by comparison. Building houses of cards is nothing to be proud of and while the characters all feign humility and acknowledgment of that fact, none of them do anything to change it. Why? Because none of them actually believes it. Wealth and power have total control of their every waking (and even sleeping) moment. In the end, all characters must admit to their failure as self-righteous twits because all involved were so personally leveraged they had to make a deal with the Devil. Watching them all squirm offers a touch of fun for the viewer.

This is a decent film, though far from perfect. I can understand why some people will say it is just too boring. Yes there were times that I found myself a bit bored by the relentless diatribes full of justification through Darwinian zero sum game philosophy and the bang-you-over-the-head post modernist human condition, detestation for their fellow man (suckers deserve to lose) stuff. There is little subtly and nuance to this film; no lines of gray, no ambiguities. The characters are all despicable scoundrels and thieves who become a bit cartoonish at some point. More editing would have been appropriate as the movie is clearly half an hour too long.

All that said, I did enjoy it. Some of the writing is sharp, well researched, and it wasn't dumbed down for the masses like one might expect. Most people will not really understand what is going on. What created such fear in these desk jockeys working to solve their problem over a 24 hour period becomes obvious as it is revealed to the movie goer that NO ONE really knows what's going on. Part of the point of the film is that no person or no group actually understood what was going on or how these ridiculous financial models were developed -let alone capitalized. In the end we are left wondering why so many "smart" people can leave values, sense, and sensibilities behind and do such stupid things...oh ya that's right, it's that whole greed thing. Not so fast. There has to be more to it than just greed right? The acting is sharp and well done by all. As expected Irons, Tucci, and Spacey are standouts -more Tucci would have been great.

This movie is an attempt to shed some light on the absurdity that has become Wall Street --where unbridled greed has become so ubiquitous that Wall Street firms and banks are now nothing short of crime syndicates staffed by well dressed con men. This ain't your daddy's Wall Street anymore. Gone are the antiquated Graham and Dodd days of fair valuation analysis and steady dividend yield investments. What we have now are supercomputers processing probability algorithms designed by rocket scientists processing at millions of iterations per second. What they are doing isn't illegal (yet?), but it is wrong and they all know it. When heavy-handed government regulation comes crashing down on the financial industry they all cry foul but they have no one to blame but themselves.

BTW, how's your 401K doing these days??? Recommended.

I found this movie's finely crafted character studies riveting. All the characters found personal reasons to collectively participate in the destruction of the American economy for years to come. Although the action covers a single day, the movie makes it clear the collective blindness to anything but personal gain covered years.

MARGIN CALL is a 24 hour distillation of an example of the economic meltdown this country and the world has been and is currently experiencing. Though the film is very well crafted and is populated with some of our finest actors it is an exceptionally disturbing look at greed and all its permutations. The only aspect of the film that makes it less devastating to watch is the manner in which the story is told - through the eyes of the people involved in the crisis and how it affects them as well as those they have financially and morally abused and destroyed.

The film opens with the Investment Banking downsizing firing of Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), a veteran of 19 years with the firm who is on the brink of making a shattering discovery. His boss Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) simply tells him he is through and has him escorted out of the building, cutting off all ties with the firm: Eric passes a file to one of his young co- workers, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) as he is exiting the building via the elevator stating 'Be Careful'. During the day many others are let go and informed of their separation packages. Tension builds as Peter downloads the information form Eric and discovers that the firm is on th brink of destruction form greedy overselling to clients: collapse seems imminent. It is now night and Peter calls his co-worker Seth (Penn Badgley) back to the office along with another boos Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) and as the situation terrifies them all they inform the Human Resources people Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) and Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) who realize the gravity of the situation and ask the owner of the firm John Tuld (Jeremy Irons) to come to the firm in the middle of the night to inform him of the calamity. The only choice seems to be to sell out everything and close the company, an act that would further betray the clients of the firm and causes considerable conflict among the firm's staff. Everyone seems to trust Sam and will follow his advice as to go through with the questionable sell junk bonds to loyal clients in order to not collapse. Each of the people involved in the action has a personal fear, and Sam is particularly vulnerable because he has been informed his beloved dog is dying from a tumor (one of the few suggestions that these people may have a vulnerable aspect to their psyches. How the announcement is made and the actions taken as the sun comes up on this night of terror gives the audience a first hand look of that hideous moment in 2008 when the markets failed, injuring millions of people's lives.

JC Chandor wrote and directed this film and offers an impressive debut - and a lot of courage bringing a film with this topic to the screens at this point in time. Many viewers may find that there is too little character development in this script, but consider the time frame of the film - less than 24 hours in one of the worst crises of this country - and realize that this may be a statement about the corporate personality: no matter the gravity of the result of crashing they think basically about their job stability. Every one in the cast is memorable, right up to the end of the film when we finally meet Mary McDonnell as Sam's ex-wife questioning Sam's digging a grave for his dog in his previous home's yard. It is a moment of agony that adds a smidgen of idea that the characters involved so indeed have souls.

This is a very disturbing film about a very disturbing subject, made all the more disturbing by the fact that it forces us to look at an act the affected the lives of all of us. As Eric says on the elevator leaving the building, 'Be careful.' Grady Harp, October 11

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

'Margin Call' is first time writer/director J.C. Chandor's distillation of the 2008 financial meltdown. Chandor creates a compilation firm based on Lehman Brothers and other Wall Street firms that tanked during the Wall Street economic crisis. The action is compressed down to one evening and a following morning despite the fact that the actual meltdown took place over a few months. The characters are entirely fictional and I heard that Chandor, during a talk at the new Lincoln Center film center, created the characters without consulting anyone specifically on Wall Street but then had some friends who were in the financial industry, look the script over once it had been completed.

The plot is rather simple. Things come to head at 'MBS' (Chandor's fictional firm) when seasoned risk management executive Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) is fired after another company downsizing. As he's being escorted from the building, he hands his subordinate, former physics ace, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), a flash drive containing a snapshot of the seemingly deteriorating financial situation at the firm (one wonders why 'security' allowed him to hand the flash drive over to Sullivan). A series of executives then are informed of the crisis, culminating in the arrival of the big boss, John Tuld (Jeremy Irons) who decides to sell off most of the company's assets resulting in big profits for the few executives and employees left at the firm but curtains for the rest of the underlings as well as a nasty kick in the pants to the overall US economy.

Frankly, Chandor's attempt to dramatize the economic crisis is admirable but the subject matter doesn't really lend itself to palpable drama. Part of the problem is that many people (including myself) don't really understand how the financial system works. Chandor goes to great lengths to provide a simplified explanation for the financial collapse, but to be honest I still don't understand what it's all about, despite all of Chandor's attempts at transparency.

Without a tension-filled plot, Chandor must fall back on strong characterizations of the principal players. Jeremy Irons really saves the day as CEO Tuld. Irons is the only actor amongst the solid cast, to turn his amoral financial executive into a flesh and blood human being. He also happens to have the best lines of dialogue in the script. Irons serves up a superb speech at the film's climax, detailing his cynical philosophy that financial downturns always occur in history and are unavoidable.

The rest of the cast do their best in roles that are sorely underdeveloped. Quinto neatly conveys the integrity of a former "rocket scientist" who admits taking a job on Wall Street, simply "for the money". But Kevin Spacey struggles in his role as Sam, the ethical company man who refuses to quit because he also "needs the money". Chandor awkwardly attempts to humanize Spacey's Sam in the final scene, where the executive attempts to bury his recently deceased dog, under his ex-wife's lawn. The problem is that we don't find out enough about Sam to care about him. The same goes Paul Bettany as Will, whose main claim to fame is that he hangs out at strip clubs. Simon Baker does his best as the cold as steel executive Jared but he too lacks a back story. Ditto for Demi Moore's Sarah Robertson, who's thrown under the bus by CEO Fuld right before the big sell-off. Stanley Tucci ends up with the sorry sad sack role as the canned supervisor, who also throws principles to the wind by returning to the company one last time, after being threatened with retaliation by the sinking firm.

Mr. Chandor must be commended for not only bringing the story of the the great 2008 financial collapse to the small screen but ensuring there were no happy endings. As in real life, the traders and executives broke no rules in this unregulated industry and hence were only guilty of ethical lapses, which of course were not punishable in a criminal court of law.

There are those who may be satisfied with Chandor's sketchy and generic take on the financial collapse that precipitated the current financial downturn, but there are many more books and documentaries that will provide a more thoughtful and detailed reckoning of what really went on Wall Street during those heady times. If however, you wish to start with the basics, 'Margin Call' should be your baby.