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?

This film has various problems. One is that it really tells us nothing of note that we did not know from newspaper reports at the time. At least it was hot news then. By the time the film came out, it was old hat, and of course, we spend the whole film waiting for the crash and Leeson's arrest. There is no suspense and no plot of any interest.The film might have made up for this if the characters had been interesting, or if they had somehow thrown light on the meaning of life. They don't. Being based on Leeson's own book means that everything is seen from his superficial angle. What really drove him, how he really got into this mess, we never really feel. McGregor does his best, mainly using facial expressions to gloss over what the script does not provide.Anna Friel has a thankless role as his cardboard cutout wife. All the Barings characters are even more two-dimensional. When the real people are still around, I suppose you have to be very careful not to expose yourself to lawsuits. The result is blandness.What's the point of this film?

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 !!!

If like me, the S&L[1], insider trading, and Enron[2] scandals intrigue you, and you desire to see a dramatic and fairly factual treatment of what makes these things go bump in the night, then this is for you.It is not hard to figure out why The Great Financial scandals are overlooked by Hollywood. The tales are not only apt to get so bogged down by confusion and spin, but the threat of lawsuit and small box office[3] means the double whammy effect is on, so of course would never get greenlighted.As it stands, the makers of Rogue Trader give it the dramatic treatment it needs to please a high-finance numpty like myself, more interested in the drama of it all, and kept me interested to the end. It (thankfully) never bogged down in exposition, trying to explain the intricacy of it all. Deft.Playing fast and loose doesn't excuse Nick Leeson from being the sole agent of doom for Barings, and his crime is not molly-coddled here. You understand what propelled him. You also might find yourself wondering if the checks and balances which failed to catch his back room shenanigans are are also lacking here, in the over regulated and under staffed U.S. commissions (Helllooooo SEC!). Talk about scary!And to top it all, this film was in video stores long before Enron imploded.To sum up, quite a nice thriller, and not a chainsaw or Münch-mask in sight. Recommended.Dotacion1. Neil Bush could find himself in the limelight 2. As well his more powerful brother 3. Rogue Trader was not released theatrically in the states, to the best of my knowledge.