Movies.ie

Movies

You are here: Home » Movies » Margin Call

Margin Call

Release Date 13 Jan 2012 TBA

  • User rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.
  • Critic rating
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.

  87% of raters want to see this movie

Certificate: 15A

Genre: Drama

Set in the high-stakes world of the financial industry, "Margin Call" is a thriller entangling the key players at an investment firm during one perilous 24-hour period in the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis. When entry-level analyst Peter Sullivan unlocks information that could prove to be the downfall of the firm, a roller-coaster ride ensues as decisions both financial and moral catapult the lives of all involved to the brink of disaster. Expanding the parameters of genre, "Margin Call" is a riveting examination of the human components of a subject too often relegated to partisan issues of black and white.

Cast:
Kevin Spacey | Paul Bettany | Jeremy Irons | Zachary Quinto | Penn Badgley | Simon Baker | Mary McDonnell | Demi Moore

Writers:
J.C. Chandor

Producers:

Directors:
J.C. Chandor

Related News and features

  • Critic rating
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.

Movies.ie Critic Review

It’s 2008, and at a Manhattan Wall Street investment bank, as he’s been led out of the building, senior risk manager Eric Dale (Tucci) hands a USB stick to his protégé Peter Sullivan (Quinto). Later that night, Peter realizes that the company is in serious trouble, holding enough plummeting mortgage-based assets to close them down. And so he lets his boss, Will (Bettany), know, and a meeting involving all the big guns is quickly pulled together. So they can work a way of passing on these toxic assets to unsuspecting customers…

THE VERDICT: Written and directed by newcomer J.C. Chandor (who has just landed a two-picture deal with Warners), this dramatized account of the financial meltdown of 2008 has plainly been inspired particularly by the Lehman Brothers collapse. Jeremy Irvine has a lot of fun here as slightly clueless and shamelessly ruthless CEO John Tuld; Lehman’s real-life CEO was called Dick Fuld. Although Elmer Fudd might have been a better moniker, given the cruel misery his company helped create. Of course, one can hardly forget Goldman Sachs either in all this, flying high after having sold its clients investments on whose failure it then bet quite profitably. Don’t you just love the world of finance! Chandor does a fine job in capturing the agony and the sleave involved, Margin Call making a fine companion piece to Craig Ferguson’s 2010 documentary Inside Job.

Review by Paul Byrne 

  • Avg User rating
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.

User Reviews

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    daverooney

    Interesting take on the whole banking crisis, a little overwraught and preachy in parts but worth checking out

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    filmbuff2011

    Margin Call is a well-cast drama that miniaturises the tumultous events of the 2008 financial crisis into one fictional investment firm over the course of 24 hours. If, like me, you don't know much about finance then don't worry. What's happening is pretty much explained in layman's terms, as head honcho Jeremy Irons amusingly requests at one point. The brutal nature of downsizing and corporate attitudes towards staff are laid out in all their ugliness, but yet the film never quite reaches the levels of, say, a Greek tragedy. If you're expecting bodies to be flying out the boardroom window, then you're setting your expectations too high. What it does show is that essentially decent, hard-working people are always replaceable and that companies will do anything to survive. Worth a look for its on-the-button depiction of our troubled times.

    • Currently 3/5 Stars.

    mart

    It's a realistic take on what happens when high-flying money speculators suddenly hit ground. It's also a great calling card for J.C. Chandor, the writer/director making his feature debut

    • Currently 2/5 Stars.

    eliza64

    I think the moral of this film is at the end of the day a job is just a job .Every one can be replaced .Thank you Sky for the tickets.

More on Movies.ie