Review of Margin Call (2011) by Shazad A — 15 Feb 2016

I want to start off by telling you all to prepare to pay attention. In Star Trek, if you don't understand or care for the "technobabble" then the odds are that you won't hold a significant interest in the story.

In Margin Call, you're going to need to pay attention to the smallest details to fully appreciate the gravity of the situation. This film has an incredible cast that each do a phenomenal job of not only expressing what will happen if they go through with their business saving plan (no spoilers!), but they make this artificial problem feel so real.

At several points throughout the film, you may feel genuine anger at certain choices as they remind you of real, major incidents. The story takes place at the beginning of the 2007/2008 financial crisis with who I more and more believe is the most underappreciated actor in Hollywood.

Everyone knows who Stanley Tucci is, but I don't believe many people go to the theater just to see him. I very much believe that he's worth the price of admission in every film he stars in. That leads me to what I feel was one of the biggest negatives of the movie.

Margin Call gives every character a grand introduction and tells the audience to pay attention to their every move because they're about to shake things up! Sadly, that more often than not does not come to be.

Stanley Tucci, Zachary Quinto, and Paul Bettany all have important moments, but not nearly as many you will come to expect. Kevin Spacey is undoubtedly the star of this film and I don't need to mention how flawless his performance was as that is a given at this point.

The problem with that however was that I felt after a certain point, almost too much attention went to Spacey. I love seeing him as much as anyone else, but the continuing A-list cast of Demi Moore, Jeremy Irons and more had to often take a back seat.

I will say though that Jeremy Irons was given a bit more depth to his character and was one of the few given a chance to properly explain who his character is. I won't say exactly what happened at the end of the film, but I will say that it could have been better.

It will make complete sense in the story, but you'll see what I mean when you see it. Margin Call is smart, well acted, and at least to me who enjoys business related films, entertaining. It sadly however did not take full advantage of its cast and at times could be sluggish, despite everything they had to work with.

With all of that being said, it is still one of the better business movies to come out in recent years.