Considering what the movie is based on, I was expecting this movie to be a dull movie set in offices and banks, I'm pleased to say I was pleasantly surprised. Ewan McGregor turns in another good performance as the infamous and beleaguered Nick Leeson the trader whose underhanded trading tactics, dishonesty, desperation and plain greed brought down Barings Bank. The movie is also an insight into the fast paced world of stocks and shares trading,and showing it for what it is, glamorized gambling, not much different than a casino when your luck can change in the blink of an eye. The soundtrack adds an ominous feel to the action as Leeson's lies and deceit ultimately end up catching up with him, with devastating consequences for those who trusted him. In summary this movie is well worth a watch and should serve as a warning to live within your means and any risks you take with finance should be calculated.

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.

Coincidently part produced by Newmarket Capital Group LLC, USA and part Distributed by Capitol Films, France, amongst others; the flavour of the day is most certainly capital. While the show business entrepreneur and capitalist Sir David Frost, and executive producer to the movie Rogue Trader, was travelling back from Singapore, after interviewing Nick Leeson, while still in prison, he came up with an idea of capitalising on the theory of making a movie on the life of said prisoner.The result, taken from the self-penned autobiography of Nick Leeson, how true and unbiased this is is only known by Leeson and his close associates. In what at first seems to be a straight to video / television movie, is somewhat different, this gritty, basic and though lacking in the big budget league, is very down to earth, this fine little movie works well.Played by, then in his mid to late twenties, Ewan McGregor and only three years after his break through movie Trainspotting (1996), and shortly after Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) too, he, according to the journals of Leeson, is playing the eager and willing recipient of a chance of a life time. This tiny little mouse has been sent to Singapore, to correct and finalise the financial dealings, for Barings Bank, in the Asian sector, and while the cats are away, the mice will play.The narrative, both visual and verbally chronicled, is of an optimistic and fruitful future, for both employer and employee, with McGregor playing the wide-eyed financial barrow boy cum playboy, who, rightly so, just wants to progress to the top of his career. Unfortunately, complacency is the victor here, the anticipation of failure is slowly built up, but not in a tedious fashion either, Leeson is seen here as the Mr. Nice Guy, but nice does not work in the world of cutthroat finance trading. The narrative, in a flick of a wrist, the turn of a deal, becomes pessimistic, daunting and high-octane adrenaline.Sliding along with a soundtrack that gently pushes and squeezes the unforeseen catastrophe is the likes of Andy Williams "Can't Take My Eyes off You", Blurs "Song 2", Leftfields "Strom 3000" and with what appears to be Rogue Traders signature tune "Money (That's What I Want)" performed by Barrett Strong.With its coarse language and respectable soundtrack Rogue Trader, a.k.a. the story of Nick Leeson and his down fall, is an education, or propaganda considering ones view point, of how the money market, and its individual stalls, deal with greed, ignorance and failure.

I spent twenty years working in the City of London and was actually working for Barings at time of the scandal. Naturally it shook the city, I will always remember the Monday morning, cutting through the press corps outside the building asking such idiot questions like 'Have you heard the news about Barings ?' But back to the film, it tells the story of Nick Leeson the man who broke Barings. He tells of all the problems he suffered with untrained staff, mistakes, and how he tried to cover for his staff. Nothing was ever his fault. This part of the film was pure fiction, mistakes always get made and the mistake Kim made at the start would not necessarily have resulted in her firing. Nick himself remains blameless in the film when what he should have been doing was telling his boss to hire some decent people. The fault with the Barings scandal of course lies with the management. They believed it because they wanted to. No dealer can make 20 million in a week unless he is gambling in excess of 2 billion or committing a fraud. A good film for those uninitiated in the way the financial world works but not totally accurate. I hear Nick Leeson is working for a football club in Ireland now. I harbour no grudges for the fact I didn't get my entire bonus that year or the fact ING made me redundant when they took Barings over !!!