“Investment Prophets”

Margin Call

To the average layman (those of us who don’t work on Wall Street) understanding the language of investment banking is like trying to translate hieroglyphics. But there’s no doubt that it would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall of a Wall Street boardroom on the eve of the 2008 economic collapse and watch the devious planning of greedy bankers that would ultimately cause the U.S. economy to crumble to its knees.

J.C. Chandor’s sensational new financial thriller “Margin Call” lets us do just that. It’s 2008 at an unnamed investment banking firm (but you can fill in that blank with names like Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs) and a team of senior executives are overseeing the systematic layoffs of more than 60% of their work staff. One of the employees being fired is Eric Dale (played by Stanley Tucci). As security escorts him out of the building, he hands a computer disk-stick to another employee and warns him to “be careful”. That employee returns to his office, boots up his computer and begins to study the data which causes extreme alarm.

At this point, all of the firm’s top executives are called in for an emergency late-night meeting to discuss how to handle the situation. This is where the movie turns into a “12 Angry Men”-style conversation piece. People always say talk is cheap, but the dialogue among these characters sounds quite expensive. We don’t always understand exactly what they’re talking about, but the movie works because we believe that the characters understand. Knowing that the outcome of this meeting will somehow effect our own financial future, we hang on their every word.

It helps that the movie contains an A-list cast of actors including Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore and Paul Bettany. When the top-dog CEO arrives to confront them (played by the always superb Jeremy Irons) he asks them to explain the situation to him in the plainest of terms as if they are speaking to “a child or a golden retriever”. This was a wise decision cinematically, because it finally allows the audience to have some modicum of understanding as to what these characters are dealing with.

Chandor’s writing style is no doubt influenced by Aaron Sorkin. “Margin Call” is filled with delicious dialogue that reaches our ears at a rapid-fire pace. Some conversations come dangerously close to sounding too preachy. But few movies have the opportunity to discuss a breakdown of how quickly someone can spend two million dollars, or calculate how you could save people a cummulative 1000 years (measured in hours[!]) stuck in traffic by simply building a bridge.

DVD Double Feature:

“Margin Call” is inspired by real events that led to the 2008 economic downfall. But in 1981 Alan J. Pakula made a fascinating film called “Rollover” starring Jane Fonda and Kris Kristofferson. Leonard Maltin appropriately labeled the film “financial science fiction”. The “what if” scenario explores what might happen to the world economy if the Arabs decided to withdraw all their money from U.S. banks overnight. “Rollover” is a chillingly intense drama of risk and high finance set in the early 80s era of Wall Street.