Peggy told me I would like this thriller about a big investment firm at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis and she was right. Written and directed by J.C. Chandor in his feature debut, it has a star-laden cast portraying people at all levels of the game, and it will keep you involved. Stanley Tucci's (after I wrote about him in Julie & Julia and The Lovely Bones he was in Burlesque and Captain America: The First Avenger) character is fired within minutes of the opening credits but his findings are key to the plot, which is explained clearly over the course of time. Then Zachary Quinto's (Spock in Star Trek) financial analyst runs with it, followed by his sidekick Penn Badgley (a regular on Gossip Girl, which I haven't watched). The hierarchy moves up to Paul Bettany (last covered in Creation), Kevin Spacey (Casino Jack), Simon Baker (good in Something New (2006) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006), I haven't watched The Mentalist), and finally Jeremy Irons (won his Oscar for Reversal of Fortune (1990), my other favorites include Dead Ringers (1988) in which he played twins, Damage (1992), The House of the Spirits (1993) in which he was among the mostly Anglo actors who played Chileans for the Danish director who adapted Isabel Allende's novel, Stealing Beauty (1996), Chinese Box (1997), Lolita (1997), and Being Julia (2004)) as the head honcho, with Demi Moore (The Joneses) and Aasif Mandvi (It's Kind of a Funny Story) thrown in for a smattering of diversity, speaking of House of the Spirits. Mary McDonnell (Oscar-nominated for Passion Fish (1992) and Dances with Wolves (1990), both of which I intend to see at some point, and I loved Grand Canyon (1991) and loved her part) must have had a good contract to get top billing with the others, as she has only one scene as Spacey's wife.
The tense music is by Nathan Larson (covered in Our Idiot Brother). I've been listening to it as I type, from a loop on the movie's official site. With 19 producers, including Quinto, this does not win the Producers Plethora prize, still held by Get Low with 23.
This time I can't tell you what Jack thought because he couldn't make it, but I liked it very much.
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