Margin Call
An unnamed Wall Street firm begins a mass layoff on the trading floor during a normal business day. Among those let go is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), head of risk management. Dale attempts to contact his former employer to look into his most recent and unfinished project, but an uninterested human resources staff tells him to leave immediately. While boarding the elevator he meets one of his underlings, junior risk analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), and gives him a USB drive-stick to look at with vague instructions to “be careful.”
Sullivan works late that night to finish Dale’s project, and discovers that current volatility in the firm's portfolio of mortgage-backed securities will soon exceed the historical volatility levels of the positions. Because of excessive leverage, if the firm's assets decrease by 25%, the loss will be greater than the value of the firm itself and the firm will go bankrupt. Sullivan, fellow junior analyst Seth Bregman (Penn Badgley) tell their their desk head Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) about the situation. Emerson alerts floor head Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), who also returns to the office. They attempt to contact Dale, but his company phone has been shut off and he hasn’t returned home yet.
These employees remain at the firm for a series of meetings throughout the night with senior executives, including division head Jared Cohen (Simon Baker), chief risk management officer Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore), and finally CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons). Cohen's plan is for the firm to quickly sell all of the toxic assets before the market learns of their worthlessness, thereby limiting the firm's exposure, a course favored by Tuld. Rogers protests that dumping the firm's toxic assets will spread the risk throughout the financial sector and destroy the firm's relationships with its counterparties. He also warns Cohen that their customers will quickly learn of the firm's plans, once they realize that the firm is only selling the toxic securities.
They finally locate Dale and Will is able to convince him to return to the office for the day, letting him know that the firm will fight him on his severance and other benefits unless he agrees to their plan. Will also is honest with Seth, telling Seth he'll lose his job but will get a large severance, and outlines how the entire trading system is basically rigged. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Robertson, Cohen, and Tuld were aware of the risks in the weeks leading up to the crisis. Tuld plans to offer Robertson's resignation to the board and employees as a scapegoat. Both Dale and Robertson are instructed to remain in the office all day and do nothing with the promise of handsome compensation in return. Robertson expresses regret for not doing more to stop the crisis.
Rogers tells his traders they are effectively ending their careers by selling the toxic assets, but they will be well compensated. The firm pulls off the fire sale despite growing suspicion from the buyers, and the firm takes tremendous losses while dumping positions for cents on the dollar. After trading hours end, there is another round of layoffs. Rogers confronts Tuld and asks to resign, but Tuld dismisses his protests, claiming that the current crisis is no different from various crashes and bear markets of the past, and that sharp gains and losses are simply part of the economic cycle. He persuades Rogers to stay at the firm for another two years, promising that there will be a lot of money to be made from the coming crisis. Tuld also informs Rogers he will promote Sullivan. Rogers says he will accept the deal, but only because he needs the money.
In a final scene, Rogers buries his dead dog in his ex-wife’s front yard in the middle of the night, and learns from her that their son’s financial firm took a big hit but survived the day’s trading.
entertaining, suspenseful, boring, realism