''Dealers'' is a 1989

British film The United Kingdom has had a significant film industry for over a century. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors D ...

directed by

Colin Bucksey Colin Bucksey is a British-born American film and television director. Career Since the 1970s, Bucksey has accumulated a number of credits in British TV, directing episodes of '' Crown Court'', ''Armchair Thriller'', ''Educating Marmalade'' an ...

. It stars

Paul McGann Paul John McGann (; born 14 November 1959) is an English actor. He came to prominence for portraying Percy Toplis in the television serial '' The Monocled Mutineer'' (1986), then starred in the dark comedy '' Withnail and I'' (1987), which wa ...

and Rebecca De Mornay.

Plot

Based at the London branch of Whitney Paine, a fictional American investment bank; possibly a play on the names of

Paine Webber PaineWebber & Co. was an American investment bank and stock brokerage firm that was acquired by the Swiss bank UBS in 2000. The company was founded in 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts, by William Alfred Paine and Wallace G. Webber. Operating with t ...

and

Dean Witter Dean Witter Reynolds was an American stock brokerage and securities firm catering to a variety of clients. Prior to the company's acquisition, it was among the largest firms in the securities industry with over 9,000 account executives (ranking t ...

Cast

as Daniel Pascoe * Rebecca De Mornay as Anna Schuman *

Derrick O'Connor Derrick O'Connor (3 January 1941 – 29 June 2018) was an Irish theatre and character actor. O'Connor was best known for his performance as South African mercenary Pieter Vorstedt in ''Lethal Weapon 2'' and for his roles in three Terry Gilliam ...

as Robbie Barrell *

John Castle John Michael Frederick Castle (born 14 January 1940) is an English actor. He is best known for his film and television work, most notably playing Bill in Michelangelo Antonioni's ''Blowup'' (1966) and Geoffrey in ''The Lion in Winter'' (196 ...

as Frank Mallory *

Paul Guilfoyle Paul Vincent Guilfoyle () (born April 28, 1949) is an American television and film actor. He was a regular cast member of the CBS crime drama ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', on which he played Captain Jim Brass from 2000 to 2014. He retu ...

as Lee Peters *

Adrian Dunbar Adrian Dunbar (born 1 August 1958) is a Northern Irish actor, director and singer, known for his television and his theatre work. Dunbar co-wrote and starred in the 1991 film '' Hear My Song'', nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the BA ...

as Lennon Mayhew *

Sara Sugarman Sara Sugarman (born 13 October 1962) is a Welsh actress and filmmaker whose work includes Disney's '' Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen'' (2004) and '' Very Annie Mary'' (2001). She has also appeared in films including '' Dealers'' (1989) and ...

as Elana

Reception

''Dealers'' received a fairly mixed response from American critics at the Austin Texas film festival, some describing it as 'poorly acted' and 'poorly scripted', with others describing it as having an 'edge-of-your-seat climax'. The film was popular among university students. However the film was extremely popular by the very people it protagonised and herofied for ever. Risk taking "propriety traders" or "prop traders" In "the City" where it was based, London's Financial "Square Mile" it became an instant "must see" by city gents and city girls mostly because of its incredible attention to detail but also by the fact the realistic roller coaster tension took your breath away and that by comparison left "the other film" in its wake. It was regarded as a slice of (a bygone) life, of over-the-phone, over-the-counter bond dealing, high salary, high bonus, trading floor culture. A brokerage house and investment bank little known but cult classic. An epic that captures the essence of the "wheeler dealer".

Production

The dealing room itself was so meticulously well done, costing a rumoured one million pounds, that it was kept intact and reused for a UK television series, called

Capital City (TV series) ''Capital City'' is a television series which focused on the professional and personal lives of a group of investment bankers working in the dealing room at Shane Longman, a fictional international bank based in the City of London. The 23-ep ...

which successfully capitalised on the post Wall Street, trendy City Job, City Lifestyle. Both film and TV series being produced by

Euston Films Euston Films is a British film and television production company. It was originally a subsidiary company of Thames Television, and operated from 1971 to 1994, producing various series for Thames, which were screened nationally on the ITV network. ...

. One visible change for its reuse were the three prominent clocks over the door to the trading room; 'Frankfurt', 'London' and 'New York' instead became 'London','New York' and 'Tokyo'.

External links

* * *{{rotten-tomatoes, id=dealers, title=Dealers 1989 films 1989 crime drama films British drama films Films set in London Films shot at Pinewood Studios Trading films 1980s English-language films 1980s British films