This movie captures well the story of the rogue trader.
Ewen MacGregor does a superb job, and manages to create some real tension. You can almost feel the tension in your living room when you watch this one!
When he first made the money back, you almost wish he would have stopped there, but somehow, like an addicted gambler, continues on, inventing ingenious ways to cover up, and get more money to trade.
All the cast does a good job, the locations are also excellent.
An underrated excellent movie, and well worth a look, if you have even the slightest interest in finance or banks.

This film tells the true story of Nick Leeson, the floor trader on Simex exchange,Singapore, who singly handedly broke Barings Bank, in the mid '90's. Of how one mans ambition was overcome by pressures, and in turn, reckless gambling.

An incredible aspect of this case was how Leeson covered up for so long, and fooled so many, who it seemed, were so wrapped up in their own company rhetoric they simply wanted to believe in Leeson. The regional manager in Singapore had never even heard of the name of the brokerage house Leeson used to "invent" a trade to cover the missing and ever increasing deficit being incured in the "88888" account, a supposed customer account, but in reality, an back office error account.

The pace of the story is very well done here. My only gripe is, for a film with excellent supporting cast, why did they take so little care over the choice of the leading players? Ewan McGreggor is convincing as Leeson only when the sickly scenes with his wife are not on screen, the hoplessly miscast Lisa.

Some may find the numerous and fast financial terms not easy to follow. But a fascinating story, with great use of background music.

one of the worst movies ever this stuff must have been made up and total lack of common sense makes this movie an amatureish comedy

Ewan McGregor proves in this movie as Nick, he is a good actor...nicely done with some memorable moments....dont let this happen to you..if you work in the stock market....and note that an actor named Alexis Denisof plays in this movie...he goes on to play Wesley Wyndham Price in Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel..for all you fans who didnt know he was in this movie..check it out..he has a nice role.

I say "little" because not much of a splash on the radar when it came out. I am a huge Ewan McGregor fan so I have been on the look out for every example of his work for a few years now. When I first heard about Rogue Trader, amazingly I actually remembered the true story behind it too so I was excited to see the film. The film itself is both exciting and sad. You see a young hot shot getting in over his head in more exotic locales and how far he goes to cover up--to the failure of the British home company. If you want to bring morals into the picture you can see the exact moment where he crosses the line, telling a lie that he can only embellish and make worse until ka-boom, it all falls down. So basically the film doesn't in my opinion glorify the actions of the main character.

Ewan does a great job (well he always does in my biased opinion) and I enjoyed the perfomances of all the supporting characters as well. Highly recommend.