The story of Nick Leeson's contribution to the collapse of Barings Bank is a definite cash-in on the whole sorry story, and I have a bit of a problem with that. OK, so Leeson, he says, made no money from his gambling on the Singapore stock market - but he certainly made money from his autobiography and this film of it. That leaves a nasty taste, somehow.
Euan McGregor is fine as Leeson - he doesn't make the character likable and manages to put across some of his motivation for rising in his organisation and then biting the hand that feeds. The story is presented in such a way that you're supposed to feel sorry for Leeson - but you don't. Maybe that is a failure of the film, but he is so arrogant you can't feel anything but a smile when fate finally catches up with him.
Well-shot as the film is, it is as empty as the soulless job of working the trading floor. It puts across the coldness of the stock market, where money becomes just another set of noughts, not really real, very convincingly, but is this really enough to make it a good film?
Euan McGregor is fine as Leeson - he doesn't make the character likable and manages to put across some of his motivation for rising in his organisation and then biting the hand that feeds. The story is presented in such a way that you're supposed to feel sorry for Leeson - but you don't. Maybe that is a failure of the film, but he is so arrogant you can't feel anything but a smile when fate finally catches up with him.
Well-shot as the film is, it is as empty as the soulless job of working the trading floor. It puts across the coldness of the stock market, where money becomes just another set of noughts, not really real, very convincingly, but is this really enough to make it a good film?