Film Review: Rogue Trader

Director: James Dearden

A film I had never seen and given the economic crisis that we've been engulfed in, it seemed apt to watch it. Nick Leeson is the man who started his own financial crisis in South-East Asia by gambling with his own companies money but made everybody believe it was a mystery customer throwing big money into the market. It is based around Leeson's book Rogue Trader: How I brought down Barings Bank and shook the financial world. The money that Leeson lost at the time is actually small fry considering the losses that the banks have written off in the past few years.

Nick Leeson (Ewan McGregor) on the trading floor

 Nick Leeson (young and fresh-faced Ewan McGregor) seems to have worked his way up in Barings Bank and has it all. Job as a top trader, a beautiful wife and money in his pocket in Jakarta, Indonesia. He soon starts to hide away losses in a secret error account (88888 account) but the managers in London believe he is making millions of pounds and everyone thinks he has a secret investor which is putting all the money into the market. As the losses continue to pile up, Leeson is struggling to conceal it with auditors sniffing round and seemingly no way out.

The first two things that hit you in the opening minutes of the film are McGregor's cockney accent that seems to be quite annoying although probably accurate but this isn't as off-putting as how dated the film looks. You instantly know you are watching a film made in the 1990's, the cameras and effects used are renowned from the time the film was made which unfortunately detracts from the film.

Nick Leeson starts to realise his losses

Ewan McGregor and Anna Friel could have been used to better effect within the film, I would go as far as to say they are wasted considering their talents. But worse than that it fails to grip you in parts and does not build the tension as well as it should. The story of Nick Leeson and the Asian banking market at the time is truly fascinating from some of the books I have read but this film fails to live up to that except in small parts. The action in the bear pit of the trading floor is more impressive and the attitudes and characters of the senior managers at Barings Bank are probably very realistic yet worrying.

2/4 an average effort on a thrilling subject matter