My 200 Favorite Movies: J.C. Chandor's "Margin Call" Sizzles with Spacey, Irons & Bettany

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There are no superheroes.

No explosions. No chases. No gunfights.

As a matter of fact, nearly the entire movie takes place in one building. And yet writer/director J.C. Chandor's Margin Call (2011) creates suspense, anxiety and intrigue -- if you care enough to get the know its characters, and the unenviable position they are in.

America's approaching the fiscal cliff -- we've seen this tackled elsewhere in The Big Short, Too Big to Fail, Inside Job and even HBO's The Wizard of Lies -- and we're taken inside the condensing walls of a (fictional) powerhouse financial investment firm. Margin Call is an educated work of fiction, but we know we're essentially looking at a conglomerate of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and more of the like. The layoffs are already under way, and we start with savvy analyst Eric Dale (the always-nuanced Stanley Tucci).

Tucci's the first recognizable face to get the ax; but on his way out, he hands a file to his junior, genius analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto, also a producer) and says "be careful." Sullivan, of course, dives right into Dale's work. Long story short, Sullivan expands upon Dale's analysis and realizes shit is about to hit the fan. The firm's financial formula is flopping. The devastation has already begun.

So Sullivan tells his superior, Will Emerson (a superb Paul Bettany), who tells his superior, Jared Cohen (a stone-cold Simon Baker), who calls his superior, John Tuld (an electrifying Jeremy Irons), who is the boss of all bosses. It's 4 o'clock in the morning, but a damage-control meeting becomes an immediate necessity. Tuld -- whose name is reminiscent of Dick Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers (good catch, Roger Ebert) -- drops in on his fancy private helicopter.

In the boardroom, the whole gang gets together. Tuld, intense, sits at the head of the table. To his right are Cohen and the firm's chief financial officers, Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) and Ramesh Shah (Aasif Mandvi). To his left are his sales manager, Sam Rogers (the now-disgraced but phenomenally-talented Kevin Spacey), and his young soldiers, Sullivan and Seth Bregman (an overmatched Penn Badgley).

Tuld asks for an explanation of the rapidly-devolving situation. Sullivan delivers him the bad news. It only takes a few moments for Tuld to recognize what has to be done -- the firm needs to empty its books. They need to dump all of their worthless holdings on the open market. This brings us to the moral center of the story.

Sam has been with the firm 34 years. There's no question he's seen some shadiness in the past; but this is a whole 'nother level. The firm would knowingly be dumping worthless market positions on its buyers. They'll make money in sales, while putting former "swap" partners out of business. The alternative is to be forthcoming across the board. That would put Tuld, Cohen and Sam out of business. Weeeeee, what a predicament! as John Travolta says in Face/Off.

Spacey toes a fine line in this one. His disgusting off-screen behavior has rightfully erased him from Hollywood, but in Margin Call he showcases the range that facilitated his initial climb to fame. Sam knows the right thing to do, but he's also a dedicated company man. He warns Cohen not to even think about this plan. He warns Tuld not to put it into action. Throughout the corporate ping-pong match, Spacey bounces from confident to belabored to disgusted to determined, then all the way back around again. He's simply a world-class actor working with a well-written screenplay from Chandor.

I haven't written much about Bettany; but he provides what little comic relief exists within Chandor's rightfully-serious script. He has a funny scene explaining how he spends $2.5 million in a year, and a knockout punch of a line after a long-winded soliloquy from Tucci. Bettany's Will is a very interesting character; like Sam, he's a committed company man, but there's something allegorical about him. I think he represents cutthroat American capitalism with a sense of humor. Bettany strikes a beautiful balance, and he delivers when Chandor provides him with a couple killer speeches. He's nice to Dale on his way out. He takes Sullivan and Bregman under his wing. He sticks up for Sam when he isn't around to defend himself. Will seems like the guy you'd most want to be friends with.

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Irons, not surprisingly, is a scene-stealer. Considering the strength of his scintillating performance, I couldn't possibly imagine anyone else in the role of Tuld.  Margin Call was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 2011 Academy Awards, but -- somehow -- Irons was NOT nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Just an absolute travesty. Tuld is the embodiment of American big business. Irons lets him travel all over the personality spectrum -- Tuld can be self-deprecating for an instant, then utterly intimidating the next. He's smart, slimy and amoral. Irons is a joy to behold, and his perfect performance is punctuated by this memorable monetary speech:

So you think we might have put a few people out of business today. That its all for naught. You've been doing that everyday for almost forty years Sam. And if this is all for naught then so is everything out there. Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987-Jesus, didn't that fuck up me up good-92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over; we can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it, or stop it, or even slow it.

Beautifully written by Chandor, and Irons just kills it. Even Spacey is speechless for a moment.

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In the end, this is basically the way it went down. A bunch of financial gurus sat around kickin' the tires. At some point, many of them decided they had to bury the little people.

Margin Call ends with Sam, alone, in the dark...burying his dog.

** JOHN FRASCELLA'S SCORE: 9 out of 10 **

Don't forget the updated rankings for my existing reviews/recent films seen:

1. Up in the Air (9.5/10)
2. Steve Jobs (9.5/10)
3. Margin Call (9/10)
4. Stay (9/10)
5. Gone Girl (9/10)
6. The Edge of Seventeen (9/10)
7. Tape (9/10) 

8. A Perfect Murder (9/10)
9. War Dogs (8.5/10)
10. In Bruges (8.5/10)

11. Split (8.5/10)

12. Bad Moms (8.5/10)

13. Basquiat (8.5/10)

14. Moonlight (8/10)

15. The Revenant (8/10)

16. The Shallows (7.5/10)
17. Focus (7.5/10) 

18. The Night Before (7.5/10)
19. The Walk (7/10)

20. 10 Cloverfield Lane (7/10)
21. Loving (7/10) - No review available
22. The Boy (6/10) - No review available

23. Joy (5.5/10)

24. La La Land (5.5/10)
25. Molly's Game (5/10)
26. Set It Up (5/10)
27. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (4.5/10) - No review available
28. Why Him? (3.5/10) - No review available
29. The Program (3/10)
30. Shut In (2/10) - No review available

31. Rings (1.5/10)
32. Mother's Day (1.5/10)

Reviews to Come...

Lady Bird
Eastern Promises
A Quiet Place
Life of Pi
Wind River
Hell or High Water

Sunshine Cleaning

Zero Dark Thirty
The Box
Annabelle: Creation
The Conjuring 2
Baby Driver
Body of Lies

Untraceable

The Wonder Boys

Jackie Brown

Mean Streets

Nerve

The Hateful Eight

The Seven Five

How to Be Single

Deadpool

Ratatouille

The Spectacular Now
The Visit
Nocturnal Animals
The Purge: Election Year
And more...