Basically “Titanic’’ for the Occupy Wall Street generation, J.C. Chandor’s riveting drama “Margin Call’’ covers roughly a day and a half climaxing with the great stock market crash of September 2008.
All of the action takes place in the offices of a never-identified investment bank that more than slightly resembles the soon-to-collapse Lehman Brothers.
Choppy waters are lapping at the firm the morning before the crash, as a downward market trend prompts mass dismissals.
Among those tossed overboard is a senior risk manager (Stanley Tucci) who hands a junior associate (Zachary Quinto) a thumb drive on his way out the door.
He cautions the young man to “be careful’’ with a problem he’s been wrestling to solve.
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That night, Quinto crunches the numbers and is stunned at what he finds: If recent trends continue, the firm will quickly go down after hitting an iceberg — drowning in trillions in near-worthless mortgage-based securities it holds.
At 2 a.m., Quinto alerts his arrogant superior (Paul Bettany) who checks with an even smugger higher up (Simon Baker).
Before long it reaches a problem solver who’s been with the firm for more than 30 years (Kevin Spacey).
Yes, Spacey confirms, we’ve been warning about these risky securities — but not too loudly because they’ve been bringing in tons of money.
Before long, a pre-dawn war council has been called that includes a nervous senior risk management officer (Demi Moore).
A ruthless solution to the problem is decided upon by the firm’s icy CEO, amusingly named John Tuld after Lehman’s Richard Fuld and Merrill Lynch’s John Thain — and scarily played by Jeremy Irons, looking uncannily like Boris Karloff.
Even a jaded seen-it-all type like Spacey is shocked by Tuld’s orders to sell off the firm’s entire portfolio of toxic securities to unwitting customers in a single day.
“You’re selling something you know has no value,’’ complains Spacey, who knows this Hail Mary attempt to save the company’s assets will likely put it out of business — not to mention precipitating a panic that will throw the market into free fall.
Will he go along with this — offering his minions multimillion-dollar bonuses if they screw over customers who will never trust them again?
Spacey does his best work since “American Beauty’’ as a tired middle-aged corporate warrior whose greatest compassion, in the end, is reserved for an ailing dog he has to put to sleep.
He’s the first among equals in a movie that’s crammed with top-notch performances — even Demi Moore awakens from decades of sleep-walking through movies as the sole woman caught up in this looming disaster.
First-time director Chandor has convinced some interviewers that the film is somehow sympathetic to big business because — unlike, say, “Wall Street’’ — it doesn’t end with its protagonists in handcuffs (or by showing the consequences of the crash, as if we all needed to be reminded).
As countless Americans who have lost their life savings can tell you, many of those responsible for the crash instead walked off with huge payoffs and multibillion-dollar government bailouts.
Though fictionalized and understated, “Margin Call’’ effectively voices the same outrage that the Occupy Wall Street movement is so loudly proclaiming.`