"We have no choice."By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
"There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat." John Tuld (Jeremy Irons)
No, it's not the film Wall Street, and there's no Gordon Gekko. It's not the informative documentary Inside Job, which blames pretty much all of us. It's the people-centered, Mamet-like thriller, Margin Call. Gekko's greed is there, just less flamboyant and much more devastating.
The scene is a Lehman Brothers-like investment bank at the beginning of the financial crisis of 2008, where a young analyst, Peter Sullivan (Zachery Quinto), discovers in mortgage-based securities potential losses greater than the net worth of the firm.
The owner (the always elegant and sometimes menacing Jeremy Irons) considers selling their assets at a loss, even though buyers would unknowingly be stuck with devalued packages. Such a subterfuge leaves manager Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) in an ethical quandary given the assured loss of respect they would garner from the industry and the lives they would ruin.
The drama is in the crisis unveiling and the ominous, subtle music of Nathan Larson, with an assured pace from freshman director/writer J.C. Chandor. It's not the frenetic Wall Street of other fiction, for it feels real with young and old quietly facing their financial and career demises?no suicides ("It's a long way down"), no deserting lovers or spouses, just an awareness that they, the industry, and the world would never be the same.
Although much time is spent on speechifying (see the opening quote to this review), and thereby slowing up the drama, it still has an All the President's Men slow disclosure to it, as if the ending were pre-ordained, and we are meant to witness the stirrings of a great societal disaster. Several declarations by successive big shots such as "I don't get any of this stuff" echo Richard Nixon's disavowals. Most common other exclamation: "We have no choice."
The unmitigated greed exemplified by tracking shots of computer banks and long shots of the sparkling Manhattan at night seems unstoppable and wasteful. For example, Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) spent his yearly 2 million dollars on hookers, restaurants, and cars, to name a few.
The top 1 percent sure knows how to spend its good fortune.
John DeSando co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com