I remember this one piqued my curiosity when I saw the trailer some time ago but it sort of fell off the radar. Last friday I picked it up at Blockbuster and gave it a shot.

Glad I did.

The film depicts the initial stages of the financial crisis of 2008 when Zachary Quinto (through Stanley Tucci) finds out that his firm's portfolio of mortgage backed securities will soon exceed the historical volatility levels - the investment firm is unnamed in the movie but it certainly smells like Goldman Sachs - and as a result of the firm's excessive leverage, they stand to suffer a loss greater than its market capitalization.

An emergency meeting is called with all the top dogs and the decision is made to sell ALL of the firm's mortgage-backed securities in one huge fire sale the next morning, knowing full well that they're selling toxic assets.

An internal power struggle within the firm continues over night, with Kevin Spacey's character being opposed to the plan because the fire sale will scatter the assets throughout the market and essentially destroy the ENTIRE economy once the bubble bursts (which is only days away).

But you can't cash priciples at the bank - large checks with enormous bonuses on the other hand...

The cast is amazing; Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, and Stanley Tucci, but a great cast gets you nowhere without great characters. Furtunately, this movie has both.

There's a lot to learn about writing for an ensemble cast from watching this movie. All the chacracters - even the smaller ones - have their own voice and it makes them memorable. Zachary Quinto's character is probably the least intersting character but I think that's because he sort of have to be the audience's eyes as the events unfolds.

As great as Spacey and Irons are - and they are great - this movie belongs to Paul Bettany. He is ridiculously good in this one.

I watched this after hearing from people that it was good times. I'll be honest that there was nothing special about it, nothing that made it stand out. Even worse, I couldn't believe it when they nominated this for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

First of all, the only actor in the movie who didn't overdo it was Tucci (who did really well and I loved his story about his bridge).

But, the screenplay itself is weak. It didn't offer anything we didn't know before. You would have characters standing by a computer monitor and a conversation would ensue that resembles this:

Spock: "You've got to see this."
Guy 1: "What is it?"
Spock: "Well, you see these numbers?"
Guy 1: "Yeah."
Spock: "It's going down. This is really bad."
Guy 1: "You're right. This is really bad. We should get Kevin Spacey down here."

Later on. Kevin Spacey shows up.

Spacey: "Why did you idiots call me down here?"
Spock: "Well, Kevin Spacey, these numbers are bad. There's going to be a collapse."
Spacey: "Shit. Let's get Jeremy Irons and his weird haircut down here. He needs to see this."

And, so on and so forth. It doesn't offer numbers, examples, anything that proves this guy did any research in writing this movie. He basically wanted to write a bunch of characters in a crumbling situation and picked this without trying to add anything besides the characters themselves.

Now this is a loaded film. Set in an investment bank, we see the fallout from the discovery of some toxic investments that will ultimately lead to the financial crisis of 2008. Writing this film must’ve been extremely difficult. It’s a setup laden with opportunities to disseminate arguments of the ill effect of greed and malpractice in financial services, the lack of regulatory oversight, whilst also providing commentary of our complicity in the whole affair, and attempting to wrap these elements in a thriller to the moviegoing public. Lofty ambitions but surely on the writer’s mind when he wrote this.

As it is, the film succeeds to a degree in showing you the scramble to sell off these bad debts with scant regard for the human impact (and yes, the negative impact on bankers) and the repercussions and ripple effect on the whole sector. Jeremy Irons plays the top dog who – in unavoidably echoing Gordon Gecko – precipitates the crisis by seeking preservation of his firm over the economy. When you boil it down to an individual's need for preservation - and omit the ramifications of his decision - it’s almost understandable on a human level simply a decision to save your own bacon; an example of a man with the power to enact social Darwinism. What the film is lacking is more nuanced characterisation, and disappointingly, a raft of excellent performances. There are some good performances but no standouts and that’s what ultimately holds this film back. I would’ve also enjoyed a character like that of Blake in “Glengarry Glen Ross”. Would’ve added so much.

"...an example of a man with the power to enact social Darwinism."

Good choice of words, actually. Solid review.

Yes, very solid movie. Liked it too. Check out Jeff Goldsmith's Q&A podcast; he's got a very cool interview with the writer.