What went through the minds of the masters of the universe just before their world — and ours — collapsed? Three years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers helped start a spiral that still hasn’t stopped, the question remains mostly unanswered. The new film “Margin Call” is an ambitious attempt to explain not how the financial crisis unfolded, but why those in charge made the mistakes they did. This small movie fails, however — and spectacularly.
Not only does it offer no new insights into an issue everyone needs to understand; it’s also about as enthralling as watching an investment banker pace his office all day while alternately talking and yelling into the telephone glued onto his ear.
| On screen |
| ‘Margin Call’ |
| 1.5 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Zachary Quinto, Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons |
| Director: J.C. Chandor |
| Rated: R for language |
| Running time: 106 minutes |
Set at a thinly veiled version of Lehman Brothers — Lehman CEO Dick Fuld is transformed into John Tuld — the action takes place over a fraught 24 hours. Let go in a round of layoffs, good-guy analyst Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) hands his protege Peter Sullivan a flash drive on his way out, along with a warning: “Be careful.” Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), an actual rocket scientist, stays late and solves the problem on which Dale was working — and discovers the company, with all those subprime mortgages on its hands, is about to go belly-up.
Though it’s the middle of the night, the important players are called in: those on the trading floor (Kevin Spacey and Paul Bettany), those in risk management (Simon Baker and Demi Moore), and that aforementioned CEO (Jeremy Irons). Blame is passed around like a hot potato, but the past is not as important as the future: Should the group try to unload their worthless holdings, quickly, on unwitting buyers? And if they do, will they ever be able to sell anything to anyone ever again?
There’s only a hint that the dealings on which depend the lifestyles of these rich men and women will affect not just their fellow traders, but the entire world. “It’s just money. It’s made up,” says the elegant and powerful CEO played by Irons, without a trace of irony.
The biggest puzzle here turns out not to be how a small group of highly educated people could take actions — some with foresight — that made millions suffer. It’s how so many talented actors read this script and thought appearing in it was a good career move. Moore seems to know she’s signed on to a stinker: She puts in as little effort as possible, sometimes even barely moving. The Brits, Irons and Bettany, can’t help themselves, though: They go all the way, doing their best to make men out of cardboard characters.
It’s just not enough. First-time filmmaker J.C. Chandor, who both wrote and directed, simply wasn’t ready to make a movie about the economic disaster that still threatens to engulf us. It feels like we’ve just scratched the surface of the crisis. “Margin Call,” sadly, doesn’t even do that.
