MovieChat Forums > Margin Call (2011) Discussion > Problems- From a Finance Student

Problems- From a Finance Student

posted 13 years ago by t_may15
99 replies | jump to latest

So when I originally heard about this movie I was excited as I heard that IT WAS NOT POLITICAL. I was excited to see a movie on this subject that didn't have an agenda, that actually knew what it was talking about.

Now for the most part I enjoyed this movie. I thought it was superbly acted. The casting was great. The cinematography was wonderful.

The one big GLARING flaw. The one(there's a few other less obvious ones) thing that made me have to take this movie so much less seriously was this - They really wanted to show that the guys AT THE TOP were incompetent when it came to the actual business of trading. I don't want to watch through the movie and pick out the lines verbatim but there are at least 3, probably more, scenes where Will, Sam , and John either outright say that they don't understand or suggest it by saying something like " just speak plainly" or something to that effect. This is just so laughably ridiculous. The HEADS of a trading floor are going to understand the business, and probably better than anyone else..... It's no different than any other industry. Does the HEAD engineer understand engineering ? Does the head accountant understand accounting? Do the partners at a law firm know how to practice law?

In the finance business there is a designation called the CFA ( chartered financial analyst ). This is a brutally hard designation to achieve that require 4 years of graduate study. Failure rates exceed 40%. People in Will or Sam's position would most likely have this designation. And they certainly aren't going to have trouble understanding the models or reading the charts.......This one point to me gave away the writers slant and made them look like utter fools in this regard.

That is all.

[–] szisoman 13 years ago

Look at it this way. portraying them as incompetent is much better than portraying them as smart professionals who understood the risks.
If they didn't know, then the blame lays with whomever placed them in those positions.
If they did know, which you suggest, then they are accountable for causing all that wreck.
Taking risks is part of life, but some decisions are plainly stupid & destructive & should never be taken. Is it ambition or greed?

" Let's go get a drink & smoke a cigarette"

[–] HHFan 13 years ago

In your opinion.

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Lets nuke the site from orbit - its the only way to be sure.

[–] kcommings 13 years ago

Having the guys at the top say things like "just speak plainly" wasn't to show them as incompetent. It was a device to enable the problem to be explained to the movie audience who are not financial people.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 12 years ago

Right. It's interesting to read the arguments over how much the higher-ups would know, but ultimately this is the real answer in terms of film language. Wikipedia says the screenwriter's father worked for forty years on Wall Street, so I'm sure he knows what he's talking about, but also knows the average filmgoer won't have the same level of technical knowledge.

In many cases I prefer people in movies to talk more realistically rather than mouthing unrealistic dialogue to advance the plot. But this is an exception, because if they scripted all the meetings to be exactly like they would be in real life, the jargon and shorthand would be so thick it would be opaque to 99 percent of the public, including people who are otherwise very intelligent and educated but just not familiar with the industry.

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[–] ehalotte 9 years ago

If you want to know how it still is in the financial industry read the boek of Joris Luyendijk based on his work for the Guardian. It' called in the dutch : het kan niet waar zijn" in english "Swimmming with sharks" It makes you shiver. And this written 7 years after the big financial crises!

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

That's the name of a pretty good Kevin Spacey movie as well. :)

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My top 250: http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=SlackerInc&perpage=250

[–] robertmichel 13 years ago

Exactly. Thank you for remarking this. I was going to myself, because I am not a financial expert -- far from it -- but I really want to see this movie because I like this kind of drama.
The portrayal of the characters, the decisions they make, what that tells me about their personality but also what the consequences are for other characters etc. -- that's the reason why I like watching movies, so I don't worry about what kind of degree they've got (unless that's relevant to the plot -- and then, too, I'd like to have it explained to me in layman's terms). I mean, for example, I'm not a lawyer nor have I ever been in the military, but I really enjoyed "A Few Good Men".
So, too bad if it draws anyone out of the movie -- but when I'm going to see this, I'll be glad they included those lines in the movie to help me understand the drama, help me understand what the impact is of what's being said.

[–] taka_69 13 years ago

the film is not only seen by finance students. when the writers have a character say "explain it to me like i'm a child" is so that the percentage of non-finance related people in the target audience will understand. it's annoying sometimes, i know.

[–] hannibalsrequiem 13 years ago

This may have been done so that the viwer would understand what they were talking about. Most people don't understand financial business talk that well.

[–] joey-tribbiani 13 years ago

I think it is fairly obvious that (considering you are finance "students" you won't know this) that not everybody in an investment or finance firm knows what everybody else is doing i.e. you can't just assume that one man knows what is going on.

The head of the firm is usually a strategist.

The head of a department is usually an operations manager

So forth.

What you saw was not inadequacy but simply people saying tell me quickly because we don't have time for you to explain what you have been working on for hours, days or weeks.

That's it.

[–] reginald_dorsey 13 years ago

That was for the benefit of the audience. Most of the people watching the movie, even many smart people, wouldn't exactly understand what was being discussed. Movies often figure out ways to explain esoteric info they think the viewer may not understand right away, especially in a 2-hour span of time.