Movie of the Week: Margin Call

Margin Call is a star-studded film, most likely shot in the span of a week, that focuses on the destruction from within of a major New York Investment Bank (I believe Lehman Brothers was the inspiration).  The movie feels like it could have been based on a play, simply because there are about 9 characters and 90% of the action takes place in one office building.  The movie is very solid, moves quickly and is well acted.  But I feel like no movie on the financial crisis will ever satisfy me like Inside Job (that sentence sounds disturbingly erotic).

It features a wide range of investment bank archetypes.  You have Jeremy Irons and Simon Baker (“The Mentalist” or in this movie “The Douchiest”) as slick titans of banking; Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey and Zachary Quinto (“Gay Spock”) are sort of the intellectual bankers who don’t appear to be in the business just for the lifestyle and who see wrong in the way their employer is handling the impending economic doom; and Paul Bettany (if you do not know  Paul Bettany he is the British actor who is the intersection of the Venn Diagram of Sting and Joel McHale) represents the mix of the two – he sees the problems with the system and likes to point out that it is “normal people”‘s greed that fuels their work so fu*k them if things turn south.  Basically he would be a scumbag in any other circle beyond investment banking, but within banking he is a pragmatist.  Demi Moore is also in the movie.  I just wrote that so no one accuses me of being misogynist because I left out the one woman in the movie.  I want to be considered misogynist for the right reasons.

The movie does not enrage or educate like Inside Job.  So, the movie is sort of operating at a real niche audience – movie lovers with a working understanding of the financial crisis.  At least with Inside Job it gave you a really clear understanding of the situation.  And I do not think the movie explains even as well as Too Big To Fail, the HBO film based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book.   But I guess the movie is not intended as a teaching tool, but just as a snapshot of the eve of a huge financial crisis.  And I suppose it is effective in doing that, mainly because the cast is so strong.  But I actually felt more gloom and doom from watching the two aforementioned films.  As I wrote, this felt more like a good play.  So I guess if you are looking to supplement your Occupy Wall Street fervor with a piece of good drama then get to a theater (or buy it on Pay-Per-View for $6.99) and see it.

Final Grade – B+