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" A knowledge of &amp;#039;poking&amp;#039; and rearing herds of rabies-ridden unicorns on Farmville wasn&amp;#039;t a prerequisite for enjoying David Fincher&amp;#039;s Facebook movie The Social Network. Similarly, those clueless towards the workings of the banking world need not clutch onto their abacus during Margin Call, an enthralling thriller that revolves around the 2008 collapse of a Wall Street trading firm during a 24 hour period. A clear focus on the deftly-defined characters wrapped up in a financial crisis combines superbly with a resonant foreshadowing of the widespread global implications that ultimately caused the recession. Fortunately free of any sensationalism or conventional good/bad guys, Margin Call&amp;#039;s narrative kicks off by showing masses of redundancies at the risk management part of the firm, followed by one young employee Peter&amp;#039;s (Zachary Quinto) discovery of a document that suggests an imminent rendezvous between fan and faecal matter. Peter takes the document, full of various calculations, equations and projections, to his abrasive superior Will (Paul Bettany). In turn he escalates it to his disillusioned boss Sam (Kevin Spacey), who flags it up with his chief Jared (Simon Baker)... who then brings in the company&amp;#039;s messiah-like overlord John (Jeremy Irons) for an urgent 2am meeting. It&amp;#039;s basically tantamount to a Russian doll, with one layer of management being peeled back to reveal another and so forth.  The buck most definitely stops with John though, who fortunately demands that Peter explain the situation in the simplest terms possible. Phew! What then ensues is a stern test of whether to pursue loyalty or ethics for all involved. The noose is tightening and there&amp;#039;s no hope of a miraculous saviour, but the fascinating factor is watching just how these people deal with the situation. An impressive ensemble cast tackle their characters with aplomb, with every figure being conveyed as a well-fleshed-out human being rather than a plot conduit. Within an environment that is cutthroat by nature, it&amp;#039;s the little glimpses into the personal predicaments of the protagonists that provide much empathy. It may sound contrived, but one such example is Sam&amp;#039;s situation with his ailing pet canine - emotively portrayed by Spacey, whose hangdog expression borders on haunting. Similarly, the world-weary disaffection exuded by Stanley Tucci as a harshly-dealt-with former employee forms an effectual juxtaposition with the fresher whippersnappers at the firm. Elsewhere, for sheer entertainment value, Jeremy Irons prises away the limelight when he makes his entrance as the straight-talking supremo whose sole motivation is self-survival. A well-written and tautly-directed movie that bears plenty of contemporaneous impact, Margin Call profits from procuring excellent work from its bankable cast and presenting a highly complex scenario to the audience in an accessible manner without ever being patronising or dumbed down.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a359995/margin-call-review/>