Review of Margin Call (2011) by Chris W — 30 Oct 2012

This was one of the best films I have seen in a while. If Glengarry Glen Ross had a baby with Wall Street this film would be the product. Margin Call is one of the strongest American films of the year and easily the best Wall Street movie ever made.

Itâ(TM)s about corporate mannersâ"the protocols of hierarchy, the rituals of power, and, most of all, the difficulty of confronting flagrant habits of speculation with truth. That moment is avoided until itâ(TM)s absolutely necessary, at which point communication among the responsible parties becomes exceptionally nasty.

The young writer-director, J. C. Chandor is a beginner, but, everything about this film feels exactly right. I would guess that he has studied David Mametâ(TM)s work, digesting the dramatic value of repetition and silence in, say, âGlengarry Glen Ross,â? along with the playâ(TM)s stunned outrage and the charactersâ(TM) strangely displaced, almost disembodied reactions as some appalling reality swings into view.

Without the cast this movie could have easily fallen apart. Thanks to the brilliant cast this film never came close to that fate. Every single actor including Penn Badgley from Gossip Girl of all places laid their hearts and emotions on screen, whether it be a cocky, cynical, free-spending boss played brilliantly by Paul Bettany or a lonely man who believes that the company does some good in the world and finds himself grieving excessively over his dog, who is dying of cancer played by Kevin Spacey, or Demi Moore who was severely underrated or Jeremy Irons who commands the film with such sarcasm and cold-bloodthirstiness.

Even minor roles from Zackary Quinto, Simon Baker, and Stanley Tuccio brig about a tenseness to the film. This may be the first post-2008 feature film to dramatize the crisis itself, rather than using it as a backdrop for an outraged harangue against the banks.

By doing so the viewer actually has sympathy for these characters, their innocence and their ignorance. If this film doesn't get nominated for an Oscar it would be doing a terrible disservice to everyone involved in this film and to the academy itself.