Review of Margin Call (2011) by Joel M — 18 Feb 2012

I am no financial analyst or investment banker, but after experiencing the movie "Margin Call", I must suggest you to buy high on this compelling flick providing us a microcosm of how banks caused the financial crisis of 2008. First time Writer-Director J.C. Chandor should not worry about being downsized in the motion picture industry with this impressive debut. "Margin Call" is mostly set in an investment New York bank over a 24-hour period. During a downsizing chopping spree at the bank, a junior employee called Peter Sullivan is given a flash drive by his supervisor Eric Dale who ironically enough was one of those unlucky victims of the downsizing shopping spree; in other words, they told poor Eric Dale "ya dale, y vete de aqui". Anyways, the USB drive includes a project that Dale was working on that holds vital information. Peter subsequently completes the project and discovers that trading will soon exceed the historical volatility levels used by the firm to calculate risk. Because of overleverage, if the firm's assets (in mortgage backed securities) decrease by 25%, the firm will owe more than its market capitalization. In other words, you can take it to the bank that it is a "red alert" situation. Sullivan informs his higher ups, which they inform their higher ups, and before you could say "damn I lost a lot of money in 2008 with my investments" big decisions have to be made by the bank bigwigs that more than marginally could cause financial catastrophes to many investors but at the same time make fortunes from misfortunes to banking institutions. Sound familiar? I won't withdrawal too much more information on the movie's plot in my review to you, because that would be a spoiler crisis. However, I will be candid to state that Chandor is a filmmaker on the rise and I can see why he got enough numbers to be nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. His direction was intense and his script was phenomenal. There is no risk calling the acting ensemble of "Margin Call" as one of the best of the year. Kevin Spacey was vintage Spacey as the conflicted head-of-trading Sam. Jeremy Irons was spectacular as the egoistic CEO John Tuld. Zachary Quinto provided some moral character relief to the picture with his fine performance as young Sullivan. You bet that I approved of Paul Bettany's work as senior trader Will Emerson. You want more! You got it, cause Demi Moore was very solid as the head of risk management Sarah Robertson. Simon says (actually I say) that Simon Baker cooked up a smooth performance as senior executive Jared Cohen. And then there is Tucci! Stanley Tucci hammers away another impressive acting effort as the former risk management employee Eric Dale. So now it's time for you to make the call on whether you want to time-invest on "Margin Call". I say set your margins and give it a whirl!

****Good.