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KILL THE MARKET
MARGIN CALL (R) There's no overt violence
in Margin Call, director/writer J.C. Chandor's
feature debut set during the early days of the
2008 Wall Street financial meltdown, but there
is the corpse of capitalism to contend with.
Taking place over a 24-hour period, the movie
tosses us into a volatile day at an investment
firm when a number of employees are being
fired, including a risk management executive,
Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci). Befure Dale leaves,
though, he hands a USB drive to a younger
executive, Peter Sullivan
(Zachary Quinto), and
warns him to be care
ful with the information
stored on it. What Sullivan
finds is the firm's undo
ing: the risk algorithms
are no longer valid, and
the company has been in
free fall for days. It's only
a matter of time before it
all crashes to the ground.
The information is passed
on through the chain of
command, all the way to C.E.O. John Tuld
(Jeremy Irons), who races in to assess the
damage. Heads roll.
Margin Call rarely leaves the confines of
the firm, and the visual dynamic is relegated
to executives in suits standing around in
offices talking. But Chandor manages to
keep the tension coiled tight through most
of it, and despite knowing how events
transpired in the days and months to come,
it's suspenseful stuff. How these execu
tives conduct themselves in the boardrooms
feels plausible, and Chandor seems to have
a knack for how they talk and think. What
he doesn't have, unfortunately, is the abil
ity to turn this material into a truly brilliant
drama, and one wonders what Sidney Lumet
or Paddy Chayefsky would have crafted from
the same material. Ultimately, it lacks snap,
and there are several scenes when characters
spout clunky narrative expositions or jnre-
alistically pontificate
on how they reached
this precarious point, as
when Sullivan and his
co-worker (Penn Badgley)
ruminate on the impend
ing doom in the back of a
luxury car. A later scene
in an elevator—when
executives Demi Moore
and Simon Baker talk
openly about the messy
resolution they're about
to unleash, ignoring the
cleaning woman sandwiched between them—
screeches the movie to a halt with its clumsy
visual metaphor. The acting is solid, though,
particularly Quinto and Kevin Spacey in
defeated Jack Lemmon mode. But Margin Call
feels too cool-headed for its own good. It
lacks rage. There's certainly plenty to spare
nowadays.
Derek Hill
Zachary Quinto
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