A Most Violent Year (2014)

On the surface, A Most Violent Year is markedly different from Chandor’s first two features – about Wall Street and the ocean, respectively – but it shares with them a disinterest in traditional dramaturgy; these films are political statements first, stories second. Margin Call was an excoriation of self-interested capitalism on the cusp of devastation,…

Jeremy Irons in Margin Call (2011)

Margin Call (2011)

Margin Call seems like the perfect post-Wolf of Wall Street palate cleanser. Scorsese’s film wielded kinetic entertainment as provocation, presenting the unlimited excess of the American dream before turning the camera on the audience and insisting on their culpability. Margin Call isn’t on the same level, trading absurd hedonism for dry didacticism on the verge…