Margin Call (2011)

"There are 3 ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat" -John Tuld

So I may be on a bit of a 2008 financial crisis kick, but it felt strange to not watch a counterpart to Too Big to Fail. They both came out in 2011. They both revolve around the amoral quandaries of business.

To start, without question Margin Call is superior to Too Big to Fail; acting, writing, pacing, dialogue, drama, directing, everything. I tip my cap to Zachary Quinto.

So for one thing, I appreciate at the care of the writers to abandon the "true story" aspect of the financial crisis.  Ken Burns will do the definitive documentary of the financial crisis some day and I look forward to it, but until that time my preference is for unrestrained art from writers.

At its core I took Margin Call to be about the amorality of strategy and money. In 2019, it's a little strange to be getting that message from Kevin Spacey, but it was 2011 and it works. The problem here isn't that the company survives...in fact that's the goal...it's that the moment they KNOW that what they are selling is toxic, it's immoral to sell it to someone else, especially without warning them of its putrescence. It's an abdication of culpability to the whole. -which is often a byproduct of "good" business strategy.

And it's in the grappling with the fundamental change of asset to liability of a given product that Margin Call delivers drama. "What should we do?"

3.68 out of 5