Review of Margin Call (2011) by Michael H — 10 Jul 2012

Margin Call does a commendable job showing the humanity - often very flawed humanity, like the rest of us - behind the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. Some of the people are more sympathetic than others just as some are more responsible, and more deliberately responsible, for what happened in the real world while others were swept along trying to stay alive - or at least solvent.

The movie also touches briefly on some of the major background issues; the financial attractiveness of these financial analyst jobs to people who would otherwise be contributing their genius to invention, creation, and betterment of technology instead of playing games with money, and the way government regulations contributed to creating the rules that encouraged these risky money games and then toppled the money towers created as a result to devastating effect.

The movie builds palpable tension as the crisis comes to a head and we even end up caring about and sympathizing with some of the people who have otherwise been portrayed as monstrous, cackling villains.