Naomi Bishop (Anna Gunn) is a no-nonsense Wall Street banker. She has worked hard to get to the top of her profession, and the loads of money she makes from managing deals that involve the movement of millions and sometimes billions of dollars make her very happy. Early in the carefully structured but coolly shot film, she tells an audience of young women that she loves money. It's that plain and simple for her. And she is not ashamed to say it. Money buys her happiness. (Incidentally, my own mother—who, besides being a university lecturer, was a successful businesswoman—used to tell me something similar when I was a teenager: "Those who say money doesn't buy you happiness are lying.")

Naomi is not only honest about her love of money, she also conducts all of her affairs within the limits of the law. When you are working with her, everything happens on the table, not under it. But the world she operates in is completely fallen. Almost everyone on Wall Street is looking to cut corners, bend the rules a little or a lot, and make deals below whispers. The person hired by the government to catch and punish these rule breakers is Samantha (Orange Is the New Black's Alysia Reiner), a federal prosecutor who is underpaid, married to a woman who wants more out of life than being a broke housewife, and has kids who are growing more and more expensive.

The prosecutor is keeping an eye on Naomi, who happens to be an old college friend. The prosecutor suspects that Naomi's boyfriend, another investment banker, is as corrupt as the Devil. And she is right. He is. But her investigation, her tapping of phones, her pressure and traps lead the whole film to an ending that's totally, wonderfully, refreshingly unexpected.

The film is not fancy and its pace is prosaic, but it manages to get us right to the heart of American greed. You see it for what it is and the director, Meera Menon, leaves you there with no mercy or apologies or place to hide. Equity will certainly be in my top 10 films of 2016.