This is a log of my immediate response after watching the financial crisis movie , Margin Call.

It stars Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto (Heroes), Jeremy Irons, and Demi Moore. For the makers of Margin Call watching this film is meant to be like falling fro m the pious tree and hitting every branch on the way down. Thats if you are a good person of course. If you are a bad person watching this film then my best guess is that you are meant to realize that we know who you are (even if we dont know whe re you live). And yet, for all this polarity it seems convinced that it is prese nting its message with all the appropriate ambiguities usually inherent in tackl ing big issues. This movie reaches for both the dramatic gravity of Michael Clayton and the grim educational reality of Inside Joband fails on each count. For as much as it is t ries to be a scathing indictment of the financial sector as well as human nature it never fully frees itself from its own air-conditioned artifice, a flaw that fatally undermines its whole raison dtre: After all, how can the falseness of one thing be revealed whilst encased in the larger falseness of its analyzing struct ure? If this movie refuses to be completely honest then how can its judgment on the honesty of others ever hold up? Is the financial sector so very different in its tendency towards corruption tha n other industries? Are the people who work in the industry not also people who we call brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers? How often do any of us ever d are to question each other on what we do to make a wage or who we do it to? How often do we question each other about who we are? There is one however one wonde rful moment where Paul Bettanys investment banker character, Will, sets out the h ypocrisy that many of us live when he talks about the impending crash: Seth: Shit, this is really gonna affect people Will: Yeah, its gonna affect people like me. Seth: Nah, nah, I mean real people. Will: Jesus Seth. Listen, if you really wanna do this with your life you have to believe youre necessary and you are. If people wanna live like this with their c ars and their big fucking houses that they cant even pay for then youre necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is coz we got o ur fingers on the scales in their favourI take my hand off and then the whole wor ld gets really fucking fair really fucking quickly and nobody actually wants tha t. They say they do but they dont. They want what we have to give them but they a lso wanna you know, play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it came fr om. Thats more hypocrisy than Im willing to swallow so fuck em. Fuck normal people. However, this film still promises much more than it actually delivers. The repet itive aspect of the conversations the characters have as they pass vital informa tion further up the chain does indeed crank up the tension for a while but at no point finds a proper release. And by keeping things claustrophobic rather than really opening it out the movie misses the chance to pass critical judgment on tho se who really deserve it (us) and instead keeps its aim focused on the easier ta rget of traders and their culture. But to be fair it must be noted that it is a movie clearly made with much love a nd grown-up intent, virtues that should be especially applauded in this deadenin g age of the multiplex. 6/10