Slightly longer version of a review in the Friday, Oct. 21 Oregonian....
"Margin Call" assembles an enviable gang of character actors to dramatize the tragic decisions that led to the biggest financial crisis of our lifetimes. First-time feature writer/director J.C. Chandor has a mellow, no-frills style, and it's pleasant to watch the cast do some low-key verbal jousting.
I just wish the movie wasn't also so monologue-choked, muted to a fault and fond of oversimplifying financial lingo to the point of meaninglessness.
Structurally, anyway, "Margin Call" has a bit in common with "Dazed and Confused" -- both movies are period pieces taking place over a single transitional night. But in "Margin," the joy of school letting out in 1976 is replaced with the bummer of layoffs at a Manhattan investment bank in 2008. Among those let go: a risk-assessment analyst (Stanley Tucci) who was just about to figure out that mortgage-backed securities are going to tank the firm.
As he's walking out the door, Tucci passes his research on to a young analyst (Zachary Quinto). The result is a long, sad all-nighter of ever-larger board meetings with ever-escalating management teams (played by the likes of Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker and Jeremy Irons) as the company debates the finer points of dumping the securities, destroying the company's rep and tanking the economy the very next day.
Chandor writes monologues for seemingly every member of the ensemble, which gets a bit wearying, but is also how I'm guessing he attracted this stellar cast. He also makes some rookie mistakes. For one, he underplays everything to the point of mild sleepiness. For another, he writes far too many variations of that Hollywood device where a character asks for a spreadsheet or highly technical financial concept to be explained to them "in plain English, please." It leaves the film feeling over-distilled, on-the-nose and a bit slight.
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(105 min., rated R, playing in Portland at Cinema 21) Grade: C-plus
'Margin Call' (The Oregonian, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011)
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