Margin Call (2011): Marginally Interesting

Hollywood is never far behind real life.  The 2008 Wall Street financial crisis that led us and the world  into the recession and the ongoing mess in which  we’re still mucking about has to be fodder for films. There’ve been some good documentaries already, such as Inside Job (2010). But a bigger challenge seems to be translating these events into a gripping drama or thriller that can catch us up and pull us inside the story.  Until now, there’ve been just a handful of attempts. We’ve had Up in the Air (2009) which sort-of reflected the crassness of corporate downsizing; Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), which, despite (or because of) Michael Douglas, fetched yawns from the few who saw it; Company Men (2011), which nobody saw, despite  a great cast; and Too Big to Fail (2011),  a made for HBO movie.

Now comes Margin Call, which is set in a Lehman Brothers-ish investment banking firm just as the realization dawns that the bottom is about to fall out. The film stars Jeremy Irons as the aloof head of the company, Demi Moore and Simon Baker as ambitious risk analysts who got it very wrong, and Kevin Spacey as the head of a trading team buying and selling  $billions in mortgage backed securities. The idea is that the company can make, and has made, a gazillion dollars via leveraging these debt instruments, but that this is a pretty risky bet, dependent on these securities maintaining their largely fictional value.   A running joke in the picture is that only the geeks understand what these “instruments” really are or how they work. Upper management doesn’t have a clue. “I don’t get any of this stuff” they each say;  but oh do they enjoy those mega-profits.  

The drama occurs when a couple of analysts (Stanley Tucci and Zachary Quinto)  notice a glitch in the risk evaluation formula which suggests that the firm has gone over the limit, and is about to crash. What to do? Can it be fixed? Can it be handled? Can we unload our cartloads of  toxic securities to other firms before they realize that the stuff is radioactive? Can we stay in business if our trading partners discover we’ve intentionally sold them crap? Is it ethical to do this? What effect will our bad decisions have on ordinary people (i.e. non-bankers) out there in the U.S.? Do we have a responsibility to others? (Actually, those last three questions never really get raised in or by this film, to its discredit.)

First time writer/director J.C. Chandor does a pretty nice job building tension throughout the movie, which takes place entirely within the company and almost entirely within its office building. This insularity gives the whole enterprise a claustrophobic feel which enhances the tension, to the point where some have called Margin Call a “thriller”.  I wouldn’t go that far, but I see their point. On the other hand the dialogue is dull as paint, notwithstanding some fine acting by most of the ensemble, particularly notable given the  mediocre material.

Kevin Spacey is especially fine, and his character, Sam Rogers, is apparently designed to be the sympathetic protagonist. You almost feel for Sam, until you remember that he’s just another sleazeball banker, that the laying off of scores of his colleagues doesn’t faze him,  and that he could care less about the effect  of his company’s feckless, irresponsibility on his fellow citizens. Only two things really touch him in this whole scenario: He has qualms about selling bad assets to traders at other banks, although those reservations arise primarily from a realization that doing this could destroy his reputation, rather than from any moral principal; and he is sad that his dying pooch has to be euthanized.

Margin Call’s merit is that it gives us a revealing peek at life inside the bubble of privilege that is Wall Street investment banking, where money is the be-all and end-all, and where the prevailing view seems to be that the general public are unsophisticated, worthless peons. From their highrise offices in Manhattan, they literally look down on the rest of America (if they bother to look at all).  There is no sense of responsibility to the folks whose money these guys are playing with. Indeed, the financial “products” being packaging and traded are more conceptual than real to them. (Their own exalted salaries and benefits are real enough though.)

But I guess my gripe is that the movie doesn’t take a stand. It doesn’t educate. It provides no context and adds little or nothing to our understanding about what actually happened and why.  

Still, Margin Call is entertaining enough to hold one’s interest.  And my take seems to be the minority viewpoint.

Still in selected theaters; available until 12/26/2011 on Xfinity (Comcast) OnDemand, and on DVD/Blueray from Netflix in late December.