Equity

2016 "On Wall Street, all players are not created equal"
5.6| 1h40m| R| en| More Info
Released: 29 July 2016 Released
Producted By: Broad Street Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Senior investment banker Naomi Bishop’s world of high-power big money is brutal and fierce, and one she thrives in. When a controversial IPO threatens the fragile balance of power and confidentiality, Naomi finds herself entangled in a web of politics and deception.

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Mahen Nowzadick The first 30 minutes of the movie is quite boring and slow.However rest assured that the pace picks up quickly as we see the competitive side of the financial world.Naomi uses her wit to keep an edge on wall street as she heads a new IPO after the last one was a total disaster. Movie is more like a Documentary about the process of bringing a company public. From valuations to agreeing with the start price while going on investor roadshows.I will not spoil the ending since not yet finished the movie. Really recommended if you liked other Financial Thrillers like Margin Call!
blanche-2 Anna Gunn, who played Walt's wife on Breaking Bad, stars in "Equity," a 2016 film. Directed by Meera Menon, it was written by Sarah Megan Thomas, Alysia Reiner, and Amy Fox. The film also features both Thomas and Reiner, as well as Craig Bierko and James Purefoy.The title has a dual meaning: It's about Wall Street, and it's about women in what used to be man's world. Gunn is Naomi Bishop, an investment banker brought into her current firm to be a "rainmaker." It hasn't been going great for her since her last initial public offering didn't go very well. Her job is to bring private companies public by selling to institutional investors at a good price, and those investors sell the company on the stock market.Naomi has an excellent prospect to bring public, a company called Cachet, which deals in keeping information private. And the waters are shark-filled. First, there is her ambitious, pregnant assistant Erin (Thomas), Naomi's broker boyfriend, Michael (Purefoy), and an old friend who is now a prosecutor looking into insider trading (Reiner). On top of all of it, the owner of Cachet doesn't like her and prefers working with Erin. Before she knows it, Naomi is on the defensive.The way these IPOs work when there is chicanery involved is the following: Someone gets some negative insider info and gives it to the press, driving the price way down before the offering goes to the public. After the offering goes on the stock market at, say $13 less than was promised, all these people buy it. Then whomever gave them the info retracts her statement. The price goes up. The buyers clean up. I guess the moral of this story is that women are as driven and as underhanded and as untrustworthy as men are in certain businesses. You can't trust anyone, your friends most of all.The acting was good. For me the script was underdeveloped. It took us into the lives of three women but didn't go quite far enough for me. This situation was presented in a simplistic manner, but one certainly did feel the pressure the main character was under. No such thing as a free lunch.
spsarkar I hated Anna Gunn's character in Breaking Bad. Not Gunn herself, but her character Skylar. Then after reading the reviews and Anna Gunn's Open Letter in NYTimes or some feminist rag out there, I started hating Anna Gunn herself, the Actor. Over the years the hatred did not fade unlike her career. In 'Sully" she was the pointless but very much 'required' female character who did nothing for the movie or the sisterhood. Insignificant. Irrelevant. Then came 'Equity'- first 'Wall Street based movie on women'. On display were vices men are inevitably associated with. I read a column by some reviewer on metacrtic where Anna Gunn is praised to high heavens for being the strong female lead in a 'men dominated world of banking'. In the blog mentioned above, written no doubt by a card carrying member of the 'sisterhood of perpetual victims', Anna Gunn was praised for her stand against the bullying and abuse she suffered (as Skylar) because she played the character of a 'strong woman trying to keep her family together'. Not that she was abused because her character would annoy the hell out of Lord Buddha, or Mother Teresa, but she played a character of a 'strong woman who was standing in the way of the 'fun' the anti-hero was having'. Seriously? Have you not watched 'Breaking Bad'? She was abused (well Skylar was actually) because she was a whining. manipulative hypocritical lump of human excrement, a shrew, who the viewer had to endure in every shot, with her 'man hands' (there you go, a misogynistic phrase) lovingly rubbing her fake belly (have you ever seen a real pregnant woman do that every moment for 3 months?).Yesterday, on a train from London to the affluent South East of England where property prices matches that of London, I had the luck of sitting next to a foursome of 'millennials', 2 boys, 2 girls, not much older than 21. During the long 40 minutes, we heard from the two girls about their sexual escapades, pee-fetish, their drug taking, and how one of them in particular felt so hard done by 'patriarchy' that she did not think getting through a whole night out without spending a penny (just by flashing her bits, and rubbing against a boy to get free drinks- her words) is a 'victory for women everywhere'. Because women have been oppressed for just about 650 years, so those drinks were for 'everyone' who was ever asked if she was going to have a child (in her interview) and how feminism 'allows' them to exploit men in a fraction of ways like they have been exploited for 650 years. When I watched 'Equity', last night's incident, or the Anna Gunn - Skylar thing was not in my consciousness. Anna Gunn does well, in her role as a burnt out IPO handler for a big Wall Street company where poor her had been tied in a 'Golden Handcuff' for 20 years and she cannot leave. She botches an IPO early in the movie and although the exact circumstances are not made clear (not relevant for the plot anyway), she feels hard done by because she is not being considered for promotion. In the two scenes where she confronts her boss questioning why she is not being considered for the position, she does not tell us why she should be promoted. All she says, with the same incredulity that Hillary Clinton did muster (why am I not 50% ahead already?)- 'When is my f***ING time Randall?'In the movie itself Gunn's Naomi is a driven, honest, hardworking woman whose rise may have been well earned. Her sob-story about how hard her life had been (having a single mom with 4 kids, her working small time job to get the siblings through college etc.) is essential Hollywood fodder but takes nothing away from her acting, not even when she asks her former boss (Mentor?) 'would you have fired me if I fell pregnant'? The former boss says; 'Of course not!' Instead we see a scheming Erin (nice work by Sarah Megan Thomas- really earns the epithet witch spelt with a B) trying to do what exactly by hiding her pregnancy (another cheap shot at Patriarchy)? Sabotage Naomi who didn't consider her for promotion for what 'two years' now, even though we see Naomi batting for her the only opportunity she gets? She goes scheming, trying to get into the pants of the CEO of the IPO guy (nice portrayal by Samuel Roukin of the proverbial 'Dick') to get laid/ get things 'wrapped up' but yet she is offended when the CEO/IPO guy bluntly tells her: 'If I wanted to discuss business, I would call Naomi'. Ouch! So she goes over to Naomi's lover (across the 'wall' of ethical discretion). To do what exactly? Copulate with him or give him info that she knows will be leaked and will in turn screw Naomi? And the IPO guy.So many things remind me of the 2016 elections while I was watching 'Equity'. From "There is a special place in hell for women who do not help each other" to "Hillary would not be criticized for her laugh if she was a man", the whole playbook was played out. There is a role of a 'principled' Enforcement officer (played with the finesse of a drunken bull in a china shop by Alysia Reiner) whose 'woe is me' is not complete without having a twin (presumably through a Turkey Baster- we always get twins or triplets with IVF), a lesbian fat black woman as her lover to complete the tick box of diversity. Anyone remember 'It's her turn'? It is the same sense of entitlement that is holding back whatever little headway the first wave feminism had made which is now being pushed back by the Third wave Feminazis who can only say 'when is my F***ING time Randall?'
ferdinand1932 As though intended to fulfill a quota this film comes out and delivers a reasonable facsimile of a financial drama, yet the reason it falters so obviously is it lacks any sense of purpose, other than to offer women in the roles.The product is a dull walk-through of corporate and financial egomaniacs who bluster without menace. It's all been seen before. Financial films are an oddity; like sports movies, they are all much more boring than the real thing. Read the financial media and the daily news is more exciting and riskier than anything served up on the screen.The real fault of this film is that it conveys a sense of worthiness: to address a deficit in female portraits in finance and the result is a stewed bland boiled pudding. If the intention was polemical, a monograph might have been better. The story-line of the cop who uses a honey-trap to gain information is risible and quite terrible screen writing. The attempts at ruthless wit are limp and even if the overall story is stale, a rewrite by a writer who wrote attacking, sharp dialog would have covered up the other terrible blemishes in the script.The editing and directing doesn't hand this any favors either: clunk, clunk it goes, until the very end.