Logging

Film: Margin Call

Well, another black list script made into a crappy movie. Soon Hollywood is going to catch on and stop making these things. Bad for me. Pretty amazing cast the guy was able to put together for this movie. Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Zach Quinto, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, Stanly Tucci, the Mentalist. Surprising, though. The script was kind of a mess and the movie making a bit on the cheap side. Not that I mind cheap movies, but for a movie about high finance, the last thing you want is for it to seem cheap and the frame empty. Bigger problem was with the script. Strange structure. Starts as Stanley Tucci's movie, then becomes Quinto's, then becomes Spacey's. All this would be cool if it felt purposeful - like the Insider. But it didn't. It felt as if the momentary main character served no other purpose than to get us to the other character. In short, I suppose, the individual character journey's were not thematically linked in the way the Insider pulled it off. I suppose if you think about this as some guy's first movie, it isn't bad; but it certainly isn't good, nor does it make me want to pay attention to the writer/director's career. Oh yeah, it is about 24 hour meltdown in a finance firm when they realize they are holding toxic assets. But they don't do a particularly good job of explaining what happened or the simple "why now" question.