Review of Margin Call (2011) by Mick S — 24 Mar 2012

Shocked to see the good reception for this film. I watched it and found myself yawning, kind of the way I yawn in David Mamet films that never get to the point. The story never reveals what the nature of the company's exposure is, and instead stylizes all the characters as if grand symbolic gestures explain the nature of the greed they manifest.

Worst of all, the film is dull, plodding, and then has no payoff. We're left with the fat cats shaving and having dinner while the fate of millions is left in the dust of avaricious justification (Jeremy Iron's speech at the end).

Yes, Spacey's character is abandoned to the wreckage of his soulless life by an ex wife who oddly seems all too comfortable in the spoils (alimony no doubt, she didn't become a VISTA volunteer) of his immorality, serving him up only a small dose of comfort, that his son (presumably at the same game as his father) will live to fight another day.

Only a dead dog reminds us this man has human qualities, but it's not enough. Thank you Margin Call for making art out of criminality and conceptualizing something beyond all recognition. Boring, boring, boring.