Margin Call (2011)

That was an excellent one.

Admirable film.

A Masterpiece!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The story, whatever it was, is NOT told. It's a bunch of innuendo, fakery and pseudo-plot that is far from explicable and comprehensible. It's an exercise in pretentiousness. It take FOR--EVER to get this plot off the ground. Though there are some exceedingly impressive actors in this film, it's completely devoid of an actual storyline...it's nothing more than some Wall Street company about to lose its shirt......and then who knows what. I kept waiting for something more detailed and meaningful to happen and for there to be some form of narrative...but it really TRULY goes nowhere. It's filled with tons of silly little anecdotes that each actor tells and none of it adds up to much...but the same old boring didactic garbage of POSSIBLY how horrible capitalism is. Do not waste your time. It's not worth it....unless you want to see good actors acting...sort of.

This film presents us with a group of traders who discover that, oops, they may have made a teeny, weeny error and are about to crash the bank, plunge the Western world into recession and cost millions of people their jobs and homes.As they scrabble to save their sorry backsides the film makers clearly hope that the viewer will feel sorry for them. This on the rather thin grounds that: 1. they're all terribly good-looking; 2. they're only doing what they've been told to do; 3. trading and making obscene amounts of money is 'all they've ever wanted to do' (yup, stand back, this guy has a dream); 4. the people they work for are even more hideous than they are.In a desperate bid to extract some sympathy from the viewer Kevin Spacey cries over his dead dog and attempts to flee the impending chaos, only to be reined back in by CEO Jeremy Irons. Mr Irons is allowed to retain his British accent to ensure that the American audience will immediately realize that he is a being of pure unadulterated evil. He snacks casually while Rome burns and offers Kevin a slice of puppy sandwich while insisting he sticks around to make yet more money.Well, these are the people who rule the world, film studios included, so I suppose they have to try to make you believe that they have redeeming qualities. Even if you don't, they all got off Scot free anyway so what you think of them is really of very little importance.

Have you seen "Margin Call" (2011)? For anyone whose career/job might have included an all-night session or two, the premise is not only realistic, the exhaustion-laced tension is palpable . . . due in no small part to a fine cast of actors with a great story and a near-perfect screenplay. Almost everything "fits" for the viewer, with the possible exception of some contrived internal tensions between the various players that are all but impossible to decipher.The direct connection to our Country's near financial meltdown of 2008 is obvious albeit bounced between factual and ridiculous . . . I can explain. The plot is laced with real buzzwords from the debacle, e.g., "MBS" (mortgage backed securities), "tranche" (a group with related characteristics); however, the concocted discovery trigger is a complicated mathematical formula that only a rocket scientist can unravel (the junior analyst's educational background).Financial experts and historians point to far less nuanced reasons for the real crisis, e.g., massive dealings in nearly worthless collateral, unprecedented fiscal stimulus, inadequate capital, and regulatory failures. Nevertheless the movie gets everything else exactly right, all the way down to an elevator discussion with a night shift cleaning lady stuck - and ignored - in the middle, very indicative of our largest investment firms and their rarefied masters of the universe world.

"Margin Call" deals with big, multi-million firm and countless anonymous little fishes who are satisfied with their jobs until disaster strikes. In space of 36 hours the whole empire collapses and we follow what happens to individuals involved in all this - what is the most interesting is how firmly movie keeps our attention although there is nothing in sense of "action" (no explosions, overturned cars, bullets or computer animation), we are glued to the screen by sheer power of story and presence of strong acting. From a recently fired Stanley Tucci who stumbled upon discovery that would alarm his young colleague (Zachary Quinto), to cold blooded executive Simon Baker and finally the biggest fish Jeremy Irons (who arrives in the middle of the night by helicopter and orders immediate meeting) acting is superb and there is hardly a wrong step in a movie - these people are not sentimental when it comes about outside world and what will happen to others, they are concerned about their own wealth and how will all of this affect them. There is a excellent scene where Baker and Demi Moore bicker in the elevator completely ignoring cleaning lady who is in the middle - for them she is invisible, she is perfect example of outside world they don't care about and I doubt they would even notice if she dropped dead there and than. Not so sure about Moore and why exactly she was needed for this movie except for her name power but Jeremy Irons brings everything on completely different level because his presence is so hypnotizing and yes scary, that he completely overshadows everybody else around - we sense this is important man who is completely above other mortals and even when everybody else is scared to death because of collapse of financial empire, Irons stands unconcerned because his own wealth is such that he can just shrug it off as something natural and cyclical. Jeremy Irons is God.