Margin Call (2011)
Directed by J.C. Chandor
Set in the high-stakes world of the financial industry, involving the key players at an investment firm during one perilous 24-hour period in the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis. An entry-level analyst unlocks information that could prove to be the downfall of the firm.
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13 films that influenced Margin Call
What critics say influenced Margin Call
Margin Call (Lionsgate) accomplishes something that Oliver Stone failed to show in his “Wall Street” sequel: it explains how and why the market crash happened, not just in terms of economics but in the culture of Wall Street and the justifications that individuals tell themselves in order to follow the company line.
First-time director Chandor has convinced some interviewers that the film is somehow sympathetic to big business because -- unlike, say, “Wall Street’’ -- it doesn’t end with its protagonists in handcuffs (or by showing the consequences of the crash, as if we all needed to be reminded).
Director J.C. Chandor – whose father was in finance for 40 years – brings some of the same clear-eyed approach to this that Oliver Stone, another stock-market brat, brought to “Wall Street.”
With its cool, deliberate pacing and muted sense of impending doom, "Margin Call" isn't like the showy financial drama "Boiler Room" or Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" movies.
It's been two years since the stock market crashed creating massive layoffs, house repossessions, inflation and other turmoil, but other than a number of well-executed documentaries and Oliver Stone's "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," the subject matter hasn't been covered in a way that mainstream audiences can fully understand what happened.
"Margin Call" is what we might have hoped Oliver Stone might have achieved with his wishy-washy "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," which was inconsistent with its characters and themes and copped out with a huggy-huggy ending.
Margin Call is the movie Oliver Stone tried to make with Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, only a lot less flashy and melodramatic — and sharper, smarter and with a much stronger cast.
But though we’re still down and out, at least we’re filthy rich in films: from features such as John Wells’ The Company Men, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air to documentaries such as Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
He takes the long view of the impending crisis; to hear this great voice curl around a Network-worthy climactic monologue is almost prize enough to get you past the surfeit of pretty skyline shots and vacant stares out of cab windows.
It also echoes the late Paddy Chayefsky ("Network").
This is not “Glengarry Glen Ross,” with venal salesman and savage banter.
This is not Glengarry Glen Ross, with venal salesman and savage banter.
I would guess that he has studied David Mamet’s work, digesting the dramatic value of repetition and silence in, say, “Glengarry Glen Ross,” along with the play’s stunned outrage and the characters’ strangely displaced, almost disembodied reactions as some appalling reality swings into view.
Chandor’s fast-paced, cut-throat dialogue is reminiscent of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” as action is primarily confined to the office building.
It's an actors' showcase not unlike "Glengarry Glen Ross" where the mettle of a man is found in his ethics and ruthlessness, or lack thereof.
Within the artful fluctuations of heroism and villainy, Spacey stands out with a performance that evokes memories of "Glengarry Glen Ross."
One of those being fired is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), a risk analyst with a permanently clenched jaw who is the midst of working on something big when he is unceremoniously handed his walking paper (the cool, clinical manner in which he is let go plays like a particularly unsettling distillation of Up in the Air).
Jason Reitmans Up in the Air handled the subject of corporate downsizing with a biting satiric edge, and more recently, John Wells The Company Men focused more directly on the human consequences of the financial meltdown.
In depicting the cruel machinery of mass job termination, "Margin Call" brings to mind such recent portraits of the newly unemployed as "Up in the Air" and "The Company Men," while its portrait of corporate malfeasance and corrupt securities trading nods in the ripped-from-the-headlines direction of "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."
If there’s a downside to “Margin Call,” it’s some of the overlap it shares with superior films like “Up in the Air” and “The Company Men,” both of which did a better job of illustrating the sad state of our faltering economy.
After the first of many time-lapse shots of the New York skyline, 80 percent of the risk-management team at the anonymous 107-year-old company (whose tree logo resembles CIGNAs) are axed, their termination announced by the same HR cyborgs familiar from Up in the Air and The Company Men .
But though we’re still down and out, at least we’re filthy rich in films: from features such as John Wells’ The Company Men, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air to documentaries such as Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
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But though we’re still down and out, at least we’re filthy rich in films: from features such as John Wells’ The Company Men, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air to documentaries such as Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
Unlike recent documentaries on the subject (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Inside Job, to name two), there’s no attempt to paint a perfectly clear picture.
Recognizing that most viewers in the audience won’t know the difference between an RMBS and a CMBS, Chandor’s script manages a tight-rope balance between making the crisis generally understandable while also emphasizing the ridiculous levels of computational complexity involved in large-scale financial dealings (I was reminded of the scene in Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story in which he goes around Wall Street asking people to explain what a derivative is and no one can successfully do it).
But though we’re still down and out, at least we’re filthy rich in films: from features such as John Wells’ The Company Men, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air to documentaries such as Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
I always find it a curious choice when filmmakers create a fictional film when they could be making a documentary (or you could be watching one that already exists--in this case, like Academy Award winner Inside Job).
There have been better movies set in this world including both "Wall Street" movies but for a rather contained ensemble drama, it generally works to get one more interested in that aspect of finance, though it's no "Inside Job."
For that you need to see Charles Ferguson's Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job.
I was hoping “Margin Call” would at least be best of breed, and I suppose, given what else is out there, it is (unless you count Charles Ferguson ’s Oscar-winning documentary “ Inside Job ”).
They'll have to be satisfied with a documentary ("Inside Job," "American Casino") or another viewing of "American Psycho."
Viewers who want a deeper understanding of the financial crisis would get more out of Charles Fergusons Oscar-nominated documentary, Inside Job.
With its cool, deliberate pacing and muted sense of impending doom, "Margin Call" isn't like the showy financial drama "Boiler Room" or Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" movies.
Eschewing the fairly straightforward characterizations (not to mention the slick stylistics and peacock posturing) seen in other like-minded films such as Wall Street and Boiler Room, Margin Call opts instead to show us that there are no heroes and villains, only villains and victims and poor souls weighing the merits of a Faustian bargain.
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Writer-director J.C. Chandor depicts well-tailored rats scurrying for cover, an improvement over The Company Men, which tried making us feel sorry for fallen money-grabbers like Ben Affleck's character because he lost his country club membership.
Jason Reitmans Up in the Air handled the subject of corporate downsizing with a biting satiric edge, and more recently, John Wells The Company Men focused more directly on the human consequences of the financial meltdown.
But though we’re still down and out, at least we’re filthy rich in films: from features such as John Wells’ The Company Men, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air to documentaries such as Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
Still, every single member of the cast -- which also features Simon Baker ( The Killer Inside Me ), Demi Moore ( Mr. Brooks ), and Kevin Spacey ( The Men Who Stare at Goats ) in one of his great performances - is glorious.