MARGIN CALL
4 out of 5 stars

another wall street movie re: the 2008 financial crisis, and it’s actually pretty good. not as good and dramatic as wall street 2, but still pretty realistic. plus, did i mention an awesome cast of kevin spacey, paul bettany, jeremy irons, zachary quinto, simon baker, and stanley tucci? yeeeeah, quite the cast. ;)

so, this movie centers on the junior and senior executives of an investment firm called MBS. it starts with the first round of firings as peter sullivan (zachary quinto) and seth bregman (penn badgley) look on with disbelief. they can’t believe half their floor is gone, and they are SHOCKED when eric dale (stanley tucci) AND peter and seth’s boss is let go as well. but before eric leaves the building, he gives peter a USB flash drive containing a project he was working on. peter starts working on the missing elements of eric’s project, and soon discovers that trading will soon exceed the historical volatility levels used by the firm to calculate risk. because of this, it is predicted that the firm will suffer a loss greater than its market capitalization. what does all that mean? in plain english: because the firm has exceeded the historical volatility levels, the firm is at risk for BANKRUPTCY and thus will have no value. peter alerts his boss’s boss will emerson (paul bettany), who then alerts his boss sam rogers (kevin spacey), who then alerts his boss jared cohen (simon baker) and chief risk management officer sarah robertson (demi moore), who then alerts the top dog...john tuld. (jeremy irons) if the CEO of your company is flying in via helicopter in the middle of the night to deal with a problem like this, you know this is serious shit. wait until you find out what the CEO wants to do. typical wall streeters... ;)

i thought wall street 2 was better because this movie didn’t really have much character development to start with. the only character whose got some depth is kevin spacey’s, but it would have been better if the others were treated the same way. plus...the ending?! WTF was that?! laaaaaame and too open-ended... we need to know what happens to the firm and everyone we spent getting to know for the past hr and 47 mins!!! :/ i was attracted to this movie because of its awesome cast, and everyone does a pretty good job in their respective roles. it’s no surprise that wall street is a volatile place at the moment, but geez...this is a very realistic look at what goes down in crisis. check it out if you’re into finance. ;)