In 2008 the world’s financial market collapsed taking with it some of the biggest titans in the investment banking sector. The reasons why it failed are far too complex and intricate for any sane person to comprehend however the root of the problem was that ominous, never receding human emotion – greed and it allowed a great deal of people performing questionable, immoral and at times illegal transactions. Margin Call takes us on a journey with a fictional investment bank that addresses all these issues in easy, digestible doses to help us understand what caused the meltdown.
The film opens to a cost cutting measure – redundancies on a mass scale. Over 80% of the occupants on the Risk Management floor are asked to leave including senior Risk Analyst Eric Dale, played shrewdly by Stanley Tucci (Captain America), but not before handing over a project he’s been working on to his junior counterpart Peter Sullivan, played by Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) and tells him to be careful with the information he discovers. And what he discovers becomes the turning point for the investment bank as the analysis report shows its lucrative investments have turned toxic upsetting the firm’s financial stability and unless they act quickly, the bank will cease to exist the following trading day. With the premise in place, it then focuses on the power play of characters between the Sales team, the senior managers and the CEO who all go into battle with no clue who will survive till the end. It starts with tension in the Sales team consisting of Will Emerson, played bullishly by Paul Bettany (Da Vinci Code) and Sam Rogers, played by the amazing Kevin Spacey (Horrible Bosses) who taking their findings to their senior managers consisting of Head of Securities – Jared Cohen, played by Simon Baker (The Mentalist), and Head of Risk Management – Sarah Robertson, played by Demi Moore (G.I. Jane). When the numbers are reconfirmed by Robertson and her team, they request an emergency committee meeting with the executives lead by CEO John Tuld, played by Jeremy Irons (The Merchant of Venice) to make a decision on the next course of action.
Morality is both heavily discussed and performed quite creatively in the film by the characters that have power, manipulating those who’ve always thought they had some kind of control in their lives. ‘I’m only going through with this because I need the money’ confirms Rogers proving he cares little about how it’s made for his own survival beyond the inevitable market crash. ‘I put aside my doctoral in Aerospace Engineering at MIT because the trading market had a more lucrative pay packet’ says Sullivan after being probed what led him to be a trader and confirms his methods when analysing Dale’s report because ‘he’s still playing with numbers but he’s just using them in different ways’. The junior members discuss throughout the movie how their actions would eventually affect everyday lives, potentially destroying them, while those at the very top, like Tuld, are already looking forward to the meltdown because there was still an opportunity to make money from the mess.
Ultimately this is a money movie and it overwhelms you with numbers, figures and statistics till your head hurts. ‘I’ve been working here for 34 years’ says Rogers. ‘You have 2 daughters?’ Roberts asks Dale. Cohen states that if drastic actions aren’t taken soon then 8 trillion pieces of paper around the world would be deemed worthless. On their last trading day, Rogers informs his traders that selling the banks worthless stock will ruin their reputation and ultimately their careers but if they sold more than 93% of their accounts by the end of the trading day, they would each receive $1.4 million as a one off bonus. It is Lucifer striking a deal with Dr. Faustus all over again.
Margin Call is a brave debut film by writer/director J. C. Chandor who managed to attract an awesome ensemble cast however it’s a shame the script focused too much on the financial consequences leaving little room for the brilliant actors to perform at their very best. It was almost like they weren’t even trying, which was a real disappointment; their lack of chemistry and development meant you cared little for their character’s impending fate during the film’s 36 hour span. At least Gordon Gekko mesmerised us with his sinister smile.
The audience ponders what the film was trying to teach us: How crooked traders are? That some people earn more money than a third-world country’s economy? Common lives have been ruined due to the negligence of what Emerson calls ‘the risk takers’ and argues that they will no doubt be blamed for everything and yet provided the same commoners with easy credit and benefited growth in their savings. Yes, we know all that… and?
Margin Call is a balanced, entertaining movie however it’s equally disappointing to know that with a sharper script and further character development – it could’ve been far more. It fails to live up to the critics who claim this to be a Wall Street of modern times – it’s really a Sunday night movie at best.
Reviewed by Vaskar S. Kayastha
