Movie Cover

There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.

# Review

This ensemble-cast financial thriller takes place within a large Wall Street investment bank at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis. Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), a young analyst, completes the risk model of his boss who is being fired (Stanley Tucci). Sullivan realizes the firm’s mortgage-backed securities positions could bankrupt the firm.

Having worked in finance, many of the character archetypes are very real, such as Rogers (Sam Spacey) and Emerson (Paul Bettany), the cynical and pragmatic traders, and Tuld (Jeremy Irons) and Cohen (Simon Baker), the ruthless C-suite. Tuld in particular is definitely a caricature based off of Lehman’s Dick Fuld. I really like the tight script with interesting characters. The film is definitely designed for a general (non-finance) audience but the portrayal of the Wall Street culture is pretty accurate.

# Conclusion

A financial thriller with great acting.

# Overall rating: 7.6

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