Made in 2011, this is one of several movies made recently about the stock market collapse in 2008. And that's about the extent of the plot. A young stock broker manages to deduce that the company he works for is so over leveraged that once the economy turns not only would their company be bankrupt but so would a lot of others.
In many ways this is a microcosmic look at what happened with Goldman Sachs. They decided to start a fire sale and sell off all the bad securities they had and many times well below the market rate just to get it off their books.
Once the fire sale started, the company fired all the stock traders, paid them a lot of money, and left them with a ruined reputation and the senior partners in a great position to make a killing on the upswing.
It's really hard to like any of the characters in this movie. The young guys never get enough screen time to develop their personalities. All they tell us is that they are obsessed with money. The senior partners were also just obsessed with money and are willing to screw over those under them so they could continue to make a lot more money. No feelings of responsibility, no remorse, no compassion for those about to lose their jobs and the small time investors, no thoughts to the people who can't retire because their pensions were wiped out. Instead we get a pretentious little speech about how money has no real value.
From a docudrama point of view it's a fairly good movie. It tries very hard to make a complicated issue easy enough to understand for everyone. But if you are looking for any kind of entertainment value, this isn't the best choice. The subject is dry and not a whole lot really happens. It's still a good watch. Check it out.
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