Rogue Trader 1999 Torrent
Divine Tomlin
Rogue Trader is a 1999 film that tells the story of Nick Leeson who managed to bankrupt Barings Bank.
All you have to do is hear the words "investment banker," "stock broker," or "bonds trader," and you know what the movie is about. Supposedly, as with Bernie Madoff, the main character didn't start out to cheat Barings Bank. When the market was going up, Leeson was very successful, but he started breaking rules early on. When the markets started to crash, his losses became bigger and bigger and bigger until his house of fake trades began to crumble.
Totally predictable, but nevertheless, suspenseful, well acted, and involving. Ewan McGregor is excellent - young, attractive, and happily married, one could really feel the horrible pressure he was under keeping up a brave front, though he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had spoken up at the beginning.
The moral of this story is, the more money that comes in, the greedier everyone gets - the investors, the banks, the brokers, everyone. No one asks any questions as long as you're making money. By the time they start asking questions, it's too late. Everyone is culpable. Enron had no products and a bunch of dummy corporations, and the banks were loaning them millions upon millions of dollars. Try getting a loan from a bank some time. And they wonder why they had to be baled out.
Anna Friel does a good job as his wife. That was another sad thing in the film -- she wasn't a woman who cared about the money. She didn't even want to live in Singapore. She just loved him and wanted to be with him.
I really can't follow the technical aspects of these finance stories, but still, this was good.
Ewan McGregor perfectly captures the bullish arrogance of the rogue trader who we still are able to like and admire. Some of the most energetic scenes take place in the big trading room where we see the split-second buying and selling which makes fantastic drama that really gets the adrenalin flowing.