Margin Call
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Customer Review
Excellent, but brainy and low-key
Up-front warning: there are no exploding cars, steamy sex scenes or "You can't handle the truth!" catch-phrases in this remarkable movie. Don't get me wrong, I like that type of movie, but this is something different. It's a drama, not a melodrama. It's a reality show about actual reality, which unlike most reality shows, usually moves along in an orderly fashion. If you've never been a manager in a serious company, it might not appeal to you. As an ex-software company exec, I can say it felt real to me. I found the story exciting, because I could relate to the characters and their understated pain. Many things are shown, rather than stated. For example, they work all night long in their suits, but no one ever talks about going home, or the hours, etc. If you've been in a management crisis and experienced a long hellish night, you'll feel this movie in your bones.The best part was the placement of the viewer in the shoes of the company execs. Imagine your place...
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I DON'T HEAR THE MUSIC
I saw a Kevin Spacey interview where he claims the practices in "Margin Call" are still going on today. This review contains some early plot synopsis for those who may have some trouble with the Wall Street jargon. The film appears to be about a fictional investment firm at the start of the 2008 financial crisis.The drama opens with an investment bank downsizing. An outside agency has been hired to do the layoffs. We see sad scenes of people being tapped and escorted out. This company laid off much of its middle level management layers and kept the worker bees. Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), a big boss is visibly upset. He has a bottle of Pepto-Bismo on his desk. His Chocolate Lab is dying. Spacey is spending $1,000 a day to keep his dog alive. While he appears to be reviving his role in "Horrible Bosses" we later find out he is our closest thing to a good guy.One of the laid off mid-level bosses, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) hands off a thumb drive to Seth Bregman...
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First-Time Filmmaker Deftly Handles the Financial Meltdown on Human-Size Terms
Having been the victim of corporate downsizing more than once, I was immediately engaged with this propulsive 2011 corporate drama from the beginning as Stanley Tucci's character, a seasoned risk management executive named Eric Dale, is told in a coldly indifferent manner that he is being laid off after 19 years with the same unnamed Wall Street firm. It's a piercing yet dramatically economical scene that perfectly summarizes how bloodless the corporate world can be, and in first-time writer/director J.C. Chandor's effort set on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis, it is very cold indeed with 80% of the trading floor being let go. As Dale is escorted out of the building, he hands a flash drive to his prodigious assistant Peter Sullivan and tells him to take a look at it and "Be careful."Once Sullivan analyzes the data, he realizes the universal gravity of Dale's warning - that the firm is so over-committed to underwater mortgage-backed securities that the total potential...
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