Margin call

A+

Commendable effort to present harsh reality of mathematic and materialist thoughts on Wall Street.

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You're a wannabe feature film writer and director, with just one short to your credit. How do you get your project off the ground? One of the better ways is to find an actor with ambition and spare funds who'll star in and co-produce your debut feature.

Zachary Quinto, a US TV series actor (Heroes) who landed the Spock role in the renewed Star Trek movie franchise, was an ideal choice for writer-director J.C. Chandor. He could play a lead role in Chandor's Wall Street docudrama, and help attract a small galaxy of big names for cameo parts as well as encourage enough co-backers. Economically, too: Margin Call was made for only US$3,395,000.

On the strength of that potentially highly profitable venture, Chandor gained a two-film writing deal from Warner Brothers, working with one of Leonardo DiCaprio's production companies. His indie debut feature is a docudrama inspired by the Lehman Brothers collapse, profiling the overnight reactions of a Wall Street firm's leading players to the discovery that over-exposure to bad market positions could wipe out the company.

Such a contemporary parable of greed and amorality depends on credible characters, and Chandor's are mostly very believable market and personnel manipulators. The plot is reminiscent of David Mamet, but without that stage playwright's larger-than-life histrionics.

The one actor in the galaxy who shines brightest is Jeremy Irons as the fiercely wily English chief executive. Quinto wisely didn't over-emphasise his own role as a real rocket scientist working in the firm's risk assessment department, standing aside and letting Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci inhabit the heights of Wall Street.

Chandor's non-flashy direction maintains an increasing tension for the first hour, while the firm's options and inevitable scheme to sacrifice some staff and betray the system are debated. The scheme's implementation is a rushed conclusion, messily adorned with a symbolic burial scene that's derisory rather than dramatic. Overall, though, the feature is a commendable effort to present some of the harsh reality of mathematic and materialist thoughts which create the atmosphere sustaining Wall Street.