Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3435 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-07-24
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Special Features
4:3 Full Frame
DVD 5
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround English
Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Original Theatrical Trailer
None

Synopsis
McGregor gives yet another strong performance in this riveting thriller telling the true story of Nick Leeson, the man who singlehandedly caused the dissolution of the British-based Barings Bank through insider trading as an employee of the bank in Singapore.

Customer Reviews

Corporate Complacency
As an entertaining film this one is as good as any; whether it is re-watchable is doubtful but nonetheless it is good entertainment. Ewan McGregor does the film justice but it was difficult to believe in Anna Friel's part as Lisa. It is, of course, a docudrama in style.

There is more than one theme weaving its way through this story the main one being the complacency of institutional management closely followed by incompetence of those whose responsibility is to ensure the efficiency of the organisation's operations so it is an expose of the fissures of monolithic management structures. It is the same tale as the story of the 'Million Dollar Bubble' that occurred in the US a few years ago.

The culpability for this disaster and its criminal aspect lay with Leeson's immediate supervisor and the prevailing corporate cultural attitudes and certainly not with Leeson who was used as the 'sacrificial lamb' to placate our sense of justice.

In addition to being a good story it is also a model of human vulnerabilities and in this respect it is well deserving of 5*.

I enjoyed watching the film and recommend it as worthy entertainment and may it be said, educational too.

A quickfire tale of a banking earthquake
Nick Leeson is probably the most infamous bank employee of modern times and Ewan McGregor does a good job in this dramatisation of how one poorly supervised operative could bankrupt a centuries old financial institution from thousands of miles away (in Singapore).

There are myriads of ordinary people who get into personal debt and then spiral in order to make it up. Leeson though didn't personally profit from his large scale fraud and deception. Instead he was able to exploit faults in the audit system of his employers while appearing to make them money from the futures markets - until his activities were eventually uncovered in February 1995.

The film is told from Leeson's point of view (as it's based on his book of the same name which he wrote while doing time in a Singapore jail).

Has the banking system changed to prevent such catastrophes? Ironically, Societe Generale is mentioned in this film as well...

More excuse than expose, but slick enough
Rogue Trader is a surprisingly slick and enjoyable number just as long as you can overlook its very distant relation to truth about the downfall of Barings Bank in the wake of massive losses and fraud perpetrated by one of its Singapore traders. There's at least two generations who grew up never realizing that producer David Frost used to a vicious satirist, and this is the movie equivalent of one of his interviews, going along with his subjects' account of events no matter how outrageous the excuses become: here he seems to have blown several million pounds providing a celluloid alibi for a dodgy dealer. Thus Ewan McGregor's Nick Leeson becomes a loveable cockney who only got into this mess to save a bullied colleague's job and to save managements' bonuses without disappointing his wife or the memory of his dear old mum. You keep on expecting him to break out into a chorus of Chim Chiminey or start dancing with animated penguins (he's certainly got the blazer for it). Still, with recent events in France the film has aquired a new topicality.

Not much money went into the DVD - just a fullframe transfer and trailer.