This was an excellent film - particularly if you're interested in finance.
McGregor does an outstanding job imho - one of his better performances...
I'd put it right up there with Wall Street.
At minimum deserves a 7.5-8/10
Formula of my happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal. ~ Nietzsche
I agree, very underrated. Wonder why more films on high stakes finance aren't made? Other than Wall Street there's not much. Boiler Room is pretty good.
shareWonder why more films on high stakes finance aren't made?
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I would have to agree,this is one of those film's i willingly watch again & again when shown on tv.I particularly like the Leftfield soundtrack which fits the film & time so well
shareAgreed.
After seeing a dozen serial killer movies, I don't feel like going on a murder spree. On the other hand, after watching Rogue Trader, Wall Street and Boiler Room, I feel like becoming a broker myself. :)
Totally agree, this is one of my favourite films. Can watch it again and again.
Fantastic cast!
Technically I felt this was a pretty sloppy film, at least early on, but I thought the script and performances were generally excellent, and I was gripped
shareYeah. it's definitely underrated. A 7 or 7.5 would be more respectable. I gave it a 8/10 score. I loved it. One of Ewan McGregor's better films.
shareI think that rating is about right. Very compelling story (the true one, I mean); fairly mediocre telling of it (the film). Of course, Ewan McGregor is great in it, but it's still just a run of the mill movie. And, as someone who has actually worked as a trader, I can tell you this version of events is highly slanted towards Neeson's view (obviously, as it is based on his own book). This film would lead you to believe that Leeson wasn't really all that guilty, that he was just unlucky, that he tried to tell the bank to close the positions on the day he ran away but they didn't and THAT'S why the bank failed. That is such self-rationalizing BBSSS! Leeson is 100% GUILTY of breaking the law, breaking the banks rules, and single-handedly bringing down one of Britains greatest banks.
shareI think fault wise for the failure it was 60% Leeson (for not owning up sooner), 40% Barings (for being out of their depth in the boom of this modern kind of investing)
Yes Leeson broke the rules by taking the risk opening the initial position that inevitably caused the demise, but why did he do that, to meet the demands these kind of institutions ask from their employees, i.e one month you're a star, next month you could be out on your ear if your targets don't meet because you let a customer go to the competition.......
It's obvious from interviews I've seen that no-one high up in Barings had any idea how derivatives trading worked and they even put Leeson in a position where he was basically in charge of floor trading, back office and accounting duties, kind of like putting someone in charge of the police, internal affairs and court system.
From what I understand he was martingaling his losing positiion by buying and doubling up into it more and more. Unfortunately he was very unlucky with the earthquake otherwise to be fair like he said in the film, he could have been a hero....
I agree that Barrings failed miserably in keeping an eye on its traders and not having very robust risk management. With that lax attitude they were bound to get burned like this sooner or later. I don't mean to defend them at all.
It just bothers me that Leeson (on whose book this film is based) doesn't really seem to own up to what he did. The line about why Barrings didn't close the positions on Friday like he asked them to do is disingenuous in the extreme. Unwinding that kind of massive position would have bankrupted the firm on Friday just as surely as it would have on Monday. So why not take the weekend and try to find a white knight? Again, not to defend Barrings and their corporate culture, but on this point they were right, and it doesn't absolve Leeson in the slightest.
And yes, traders are under extreme pressure. That's why it takes a rare type of person to really succeed at it. Leeson was NOT that type of person. He never put on any kind of fantastic trade. All he was supposed to do was arbitrage and execution of clients trades. Both rather run-of-the-mill stuff. He took it upon himself to take outright naked positions with the firms money. And the errors he made in THOSE trades were flat-out newbie mistakes, like doubling-down to make up losses. EVERYBODY does that kind of stupid move when they start, it's just they don't have access to billions of dollars when they are doing it.
Leeson was, sadly, very typical. Not an outstanding trader by any stretch of the imagination.
sorry to keep sticking up for leeson and disagreeing with you, but from interviews i've heard from other people on the trading floor that worked with leeson, he really was a star trader for a long time in Singapore, and could call the market moves and get orders filled for clients in the blink of an eye so to say he never made a good trade in his life is probably wrong......it seems in the end he was finished by the thing that most traders and gamblers are finsihed by....not accepting that they are wrong this time!
I don't know if the film softened the way trader's used to trade indices in the early 90's i.e Candlesticks/Bars, chart analysis and pivot points etc.. like now, but from what i've heard from trader's that were around then, it really was just a case of a screen, list of tickers & bid and asks, a load of people screaming and signalling to each other.........then the tickers that were on top of the screen at that particular times were the ones to long and the ones at the bottom were the ones to short.....so PA at it's most basic..........so i don't really know how one could be confident to trade that way........but hey....
BUT EVEN THAT ABOVE PARAGRAPH IS MORE THAN ANYONE IN BARINGS UNDERSTOOD other than Leeson it seems..............
I shouldn't have said he wasn't a good trader previous to his downfall. I really wouldn't know.
I would like to see this whole episode told in a movie from a different perspective than Leeson's, though. It really is a huge story, the downfall of one of London's biggest banks.
totally agree. underrated. i have watched it over and over. it has that tense escalating element about it.
"rage to exist..." http://tinyurl.com/c9ush3z
the whole thing was very flat and predictable, they never brought it to life and it was a bit painful
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