Margin Call ****

A tense, ultra-high-stakes drama that takes place over 24 hours at a top Wall Street firm at the beginning of the financial crisis, "Margin Call" presents an inside look at the Street's corporate life, culture, perks, and cool brutality. On a day when the firm is already in trouble and massively downsizing, a hot-shot young risk management analyst finds a formula error that could bring down the company. The danger is apparent to everyone, and the firm, with it's characteristic customs and protocols, springs into action.

An outstanding example of an inside-look movie, of which we've had several this season - "Moneyball," "Contagion," "The Ides of March" - this film shows what it's like to live inside the glass tower on its worst day. Without getting mired in the details and the numbers on the screens, a talented and seasoned cast inhabits a superb script from first-time director/writer J.C. Chandor. How the producers got such a cast - Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci - with no budget could doubtless be its own story, but it was clearly key to the success of the movie.

You may not be mad as hell at the end of the movie, like I was with "Inside Job," but you'll certainly have a new appreciation for the house-of-cards confidence game that makes up our bloated financial sector, a game that can build skyscrapers when the music is playing, and reduce citizens to living in tents in parks when it stops.