Margin Call
3.5/4
Starring: Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Penn Badgely, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Jeremy Irons, Mary McDonnell
Rated R for Language
No gunshots. No car chases. Unbearable suspense.
How is this possible? When you have a top-notch everything, a lack of violence and stunts is irrelevant. The acting is superb from top to bottom. The writing is strong and intelligent. The direction, by a filmmaker who has only made one other professional short, is terrific. Those three things, my friends, are what really make a good movie.
A major financial company is going through severe cutbacks, and Eric Dale (Tucci), the risk management division head, is one of the victims. Before he leaves, he hands a jump drive to one of his underlings, a 28-year old guy named Peter Sullivan (Quinto), with the warning to "be careful." The jump drive contains a project that Eric was working on but wasn't able to finish. When Peter fills in the blanks, the results horrify him. The products that they are selling are close to worthless, and due to how they are made, they are forced to keep them on their books longer than they'd like. If everything goes belly up, the company is sunk a zillion times over. Now Peter and a few other executives at the company are scrambling to figure out what to do, and the choices are ugly and uglier.
Of the nine members of the main cast, all are actors who have made names for themselves, either in TV or in film. Two Oscar winners and two nominees, two movie stars, and two leads on hit TV shows. All of whom, I am pretty sure, have been paid more for one film/TV season than the entire budget ($3.395 million) of this film. There's only one way you can do that: you have a script that's so good that they want to be in it. A lot of times, actors are offered so much money to do a film that it would be insane to turn it down (for example, Demi Moore was paid $12.5 million, nearly four times the budget of this movie, to appear in "Striptease"). It's not hard to see what appealed to the actors: the story is relevant and the script is strong enough to allow them to use all of their talents in their performances.
Every single actor in this film gives a brilliant performance. Zachary Quinto is terrific as the young worker who stumbled onto something out of his worst nightmare. Penn Badgely is just as good as his friend Seth, who jokes about it until he realizes that it means that his job is gone (the scene where he makes one desperate play for his job is heartbreaking). Kevin Spacey gives another brilliant performance as a man who is stuck in the muck and watching in disbelief and disgust at what people around him are doing to get out of it. Simon Baker is positively chilling as division head Jared Cohen, who will do anything to escape unscathed and will destroy anyone who gets in his way (reportedly, studios were offering writer/director J.C. Chandor more money if he agreed to make one of the characters an out-and-out villain, but he refused. I suppose he got his way, although Jared Cohen makes Gordon Gekko look like a pussy). Demi Moore (taking over for Carla Gugino, who had to bow out at the last minute) gives one of her best performances as the professional who reminds Cohen that she warned him that this could happen, but the fact that she's no match for Cohen in terms of ruthlessness gives her a dose of vulnerability. Finally, there's the irreplaceable Jeremy Irons, whose John Tuld radiates power (the scenes that build up to his entrance make up the film's most suspenseful sequence...it's masterful). And while the character is based on the much despised ex-CEO of Lehman Brothers, Tuld is not entirely unsympathetic. He may be ruthless and do some despicable things, but he has his reasons and he at least acknowledges that what he's doing is bad (although he marginalizes the implications of them).
The film is really divided into two parts: a thriller and a tragedy. Surprisingly, both are on equal footing. When we come to realize how big this problem actually is, it's incredibly suspenseful. People are squabbling over whose fault it is and growing intimidated at having to tell the next guy on the top of the food chain. Part two is a tragedy. Once all the pieces are laid out and a decision is made, the characters fight to do their jobs and keep their heads up as they essentially screw the whole world over.
There are only two real flaws with the film. The first is that the film opens up with a huge layoff, which begs the question why they would fire such a huge amount of people if they didn't know what was coming. The second is that for a lay person, the actual problem isn't very clear, and even when it's presented in layman's terms, it's still not very clear. After the third time watching it, I finally get it (pretty much). Strangely, though, it almost doesn't matter because the performances, script and direction are so strong that we understand in (very) general terms what is going on, and more importantly, what it means.
"Margin Call" is made for the thinking person in mind. You have to pay attention, but it's so engrossing that that won't be hard at all.
Starring: Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Penn Badgely, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Jeremy Irons, Mary McDonnell
Rated R for Language
No gunshots. No car chases. Unbearable suspense.
How is this possible? When you have a top-notch everything, a lack of violence and stunts is irrelevant. The acting is superb from top to bottom. The writing is strong and intelligent. The direction, by a filmmaker who has only made one other professional short, is terrific. Those three things, my friends, are what really make a good movie.
A major financial company is going through severe cutbacks, and Eric Dale (Tucci), the risk management division head, is one of the victims. Before he leaves, he hands a jump drive to one of his underlings, a 28-year old guy named Peter Sullivan (Quinto), with the warning to "be careful." The jump drive contains a project that Eric was working on but wasn't able to finish. When Peter fills in the blanks, the results horrify him. The products that they are selling are close to worthless, and due to how they are made, they are forced to keep them on their books longer than they'd like. If everything goes belly up, the company is sunk a zillion times over. Now Peter and a few other executives at the company are scrambling to figure out what to do, and the choices are ugly and uglier.
Of the nine members of the main cast, all are actors who have made names for themselves, either in TV or in film. Two Oscar winners and two nominees, two movie stars, and two leads on hit TV shows. All of whom, I am pretty sure, have been paid more for one film/TV season than the entire budget ($3.395 million) of this film. There's only one way you can do that: you have a script that's so good that they want to be in it. A lot of times, actors are offered so much money to do a film that it would be insane to turn it down (for example, Demi Moore was paid $12.5 million, nearly four times the budget of this movie, to appear in "Striptease"). It's not hard to see what appealed to the actors: the story is relevant and the script is strong enough to allow them to use all of their talents in their performances.
Every single actor in this film gives a brilliant performance. Zachary Quinto is terrific as the young worker who stumbled onto something out of his worst nightmare. Penn Badgely is just as good as his friend Seth, who jokes about it until he realizes that it means that his job is gone (the scene where he makes one desperate play for his job is heartbreaking). Kevin Spacey gives another brilliant performance as a man who is stuck in the muck and watching in disbelief and disgust at what people around him are doing to get out of it. Simon Baker is positively chilling as division head Jared Cohen, who will do anything to escape unscathed and will destroy anyone who gets in his way (reportedly, studios were offering writer/director J.C. Chandor more money if he agreed to make one of the characters an out-and-out villain, but he refused. I suppose he got his way, although Jared Cohen makes Gordon Gekko look like a pussy). Demi Moore (taking over for Carla Gugino, who had to bow out at the last minute) gives one of her best performances as the professional who reminds Cohen that she warned him that this could happen, but the fact that she's no match for Cohen in terms of ruthlessness gives her a dose of vulnerability. Finally, there's the irreplaceable Jeremy Irons, whose John Tuld radiates power (the scenes that build up to his entrance make up the film's most suspenseful sequence...it's masterful). And while the character is based on the much despised ex-CEO of Lehman Brothers, Tuld is not entirely unsympathetic. He may be ruthless and do some despicable things, but he has his reasons and he at least acknowledges that what he's doing is bad (although he marginalizes the implications of them).
The film is really divided into two parts: a thriller and a tragedy. Surprisingly, both are on equal footing. When we come to realize how big this problem actually is, it's incredibly suspenseful. People are squabbling over whose fault it is and growing intimidated at having to tell the next guy on the top of the food chain. Part two is a tragedy. Once all the pieces are laid out and a decision is made, the characters fight to do their jobs and keep their heads up as they essentially screw the whole world over.
There are only two real flaws with the film. The first is that the film opens up with a huge layoff, which begs the question why they would fire such a huge amount of people if they didn't know what was coming. The second is that for a lay person, the actual problem isn't very clear, and even when it's presented in layman's terms, it's still not very clear. After the third time watching it, I finally get it (pretty much). Strangely, though, it almost doesn't matter because the performances, script and direction are so strong that we understand in (very) general terms what is going on, and more importantly, what it means.
"Margin Call" is made for the thinking person in mind. You have to pay attention, but it's so engrossing that that won't be hard at all.
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