Movie Musings: MARGIN CALL

I love movies that deal with the financial meltdown of 2008. A greedy, uncaring drone in a suit and tie can be scarier than any unseen monster lurking in the shadows.

So when MARGIN CALL parades a who's who of veteran character actors across the screen and has them stare worriedly into space while calmly yammering financial technobabble its crazy how gut wrenching the whole thing can be.

With such a low key measured delivery it would be incredibly easy to misstep and destroy the pacing of the movie, but everyone from the actors to the behind the camera talent has spot on instincts and the film  never feels like its dragging.

Watching actors chew the scenery is nice. Who doesn’t love a grand shouting match that plays to the audience in the back of the theatre. It’s a different thing altogether to muck about in the space between the beats and draw tension and drama out of the silence. That’s a hard thing for even the best of the best to do, and MARGIN CALL does it well.