Directed by: J.C. Chandor
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci
Rating: R
105 minutes

From left: Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, and Zachary Quinto star in “Margin Call.” (Courtesy photo)

It's only too fitting that "Margin Call," a financial thriller centered on the 2008 economic collapse, has premiered in the midst of worldwide anti-corporate greed protests. Oh, and Saturday marked the anniversary of Black Tuesday. How's that for your well-timed movie release?

Thankfully, "Margin Call" doesn't waste the nice coincidence, and instead capitalizes (no pun intended) on its timeliness. The film puts forth a message that, despite a dull premise, at least tries to avoid the typical "burn Wall Street down" mantras to which we've become accustomed over the past couple years.

"Margin Call" begins with the laying off of a large portion of the risk management division of an unnamed firm in New York. Among the newly unemployed is a middle manager who's concerned about an unfinished project he's been working on. He hands it off to one of the layoff survivors, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto, "Star Trek"), who finishes the work only to find that it's a projection of an imminent company collapse. He shows it to his boss, Will Emerson (Paul Bettany, "The Da Vinci Code"), who then shows it to his boss, Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey, "American Beauty").

Even after several reviews, the numbers still seem to add up, meaning the firm is about to enter a catastrophic decline in value. In fact, it's already started nose-diving. Frantically, they go to the CEO, John Tuld (Jeremy Irons, "Reversal of Fortune"), who decides the best way to resolve the problem is to sell any and all toxic assets before they implode. Of course, this solution doesn't sit well with Rogers, who knows there must be a better way than cheating the rest of the industry into financial turmoil. But time is running short, and it becomes evident quickly that there's no easy fix. Heads are going to roll; the only question is who's going first.

Stanley Tucci in a scene from “Margin Call.” (Courtesy photo)

I have to commend first-time director and writer J.C. Chandor for what he's put together here. Just the cast list alone is an achievement (we get appearances by Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, and Penn Badgley, in addition to the top-billed stars). As a director, Chandor knows how to keep the story moving and how to keep us interested. Considering this is a movie where all the conflict takes place inside an unseen computer model, it's quite a feat that the audience stays invested in it (once again, no pun intended).

Where Chandor falters is in the script, which is confusing and repetitive. We go from jargon-filled speeches about God-knows-what to oversimplifications that usually amount to something along the lines of, "You're right. It doesn't look pretty."

For us laypeople, it's hard to comprehend, and if the basic issue isn't understandable, it's hard to follow the action, no matter how well the tension builds.

The actors, thankfully, have been fully briefed on what exactly their lines mean, and their performances are strong and realistic. They all get the high-stress office demeanor just right, with a good balance of seriousness and eccentricity, the latter increasing as we move up the chain of command. It's very much an ensemble cast; Spacey is really the only one we could call the main character, but his fight against the solution Tuld wants feels weak, and it's not clear until late that we should even focus on him. Nevertheless, he plays his role well, as do most of the other cast members.

Irons is particularly commanding in his scenes, as is Bettany. Quinto is good too, but his character just isn't very interesting. To be fair, none of the others is particularly fascinating either, but Sullivan is a low-level employee, so he can't even boss anyone around.

If it weren't for the performances, this would be an unbearably boring movie. As it is, it's still a little dull, although viewers who are familiar with the finance industry may disagree with me. "Margin Call" may be a valiant effort by a new director to make some sense of the recession, and seeing the collapse from an insider's perspective gives us a new and interesting outlook on things. But there's no getting around a boring movie, and no matter how valid a point "Margin Call" makes, its inaccessibility prevents it from really reaching the audience.

Danny Eisenberg is a 2010 graduate of the Bromfield School and is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania.