David Edelstein endorses: "Margin Call"
Wall Street is much in the news these days ... and next weekend it's coming to the movies. David Edelstein has a preview:
No matter what you think of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters - and I'm not here as a political pundit so I can't talk to them directly - I hope you'll agree they deserve some R&R, maybe even "movie night."
Have I got the movie: J.C. Chandor's terrific Wall Street nail-biter "Margin Call," which suggests that - I'm quoting Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman - the so-called Masters of the Universe got rich by "peddling complex financial schemes that... helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens."
Except "Margin Call" tells the story from their point of view, and in a weird way makes you feel for them - makes you feel what it's like to have to choose between your own wealth and, you know, tens of millions of other peoples' 401(k)s!
In the film, we're not down on the street with the unshowered masses. We're WAY UP in the offices of a mighty financial firm, perched over the shoulder of risk-management underling played by Zachary Quinto, who gets a file from his laid-off boss played by Stanley Tucci and discovers...
Well, he gets the same look as the guy in "Deep Impact" who realizes a giant comet is headed straight for Earth.
The structure is like a disaster movie. But what spooks the execs is not that their assets are toxic but the prospect of everyone else finding out. And it's only natural for us to cheer for people trying to save the day, even if they're flimflam artists. Explode that comet!
Kevin Spacey's character begins as a complacent cutthroat, but it turns out there's a line he's loathe to cross: a fire-sale of worthless assets to unsuspecting customers, many of whom will go bust. But the head of the firm, played by Jeremy Irons in Boris Karloff mode, isn't moved by his reasoning.
Spacey gives a major performance, and Quinto, Tucci, Simon Baker, and even Demi Moore are amazingly convincing. And seeing the world for a couple of hours through the eyes of Wall Street's minions will give those protesters a better idea of just how scary - and how human - what they're up against really is.