mabbott10 Review of Too Big to Fail

Too Big to Fail (2011 TV Movie)

*** Spoiler Alert **** The Economy Stays In Trouble

[6/10 · 12 June 2011]

Finally watched this and I have to say - not overly impressed. While the actual story of the Crash of 2008 (and when are we going to start calling it that?) is too long for a two hour movie but, this film drops some major turning points that contributed to the meltdown. The writing tries to make the issues understandable, sometimes at the expense of characters (like when the Treasury Secretary's staff explain to their communications director how the mortgage meltdown happened . . . really? An senior employee of the Treasury Department has to have this explained to her after working through the crisis for months?). However, the film does not try to hide some colossal and often tragic mistakes by the main characters. Hurt is good as Paulson but, the best performance has to be Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke. I also enjoyed how the film showed the top CEOs for the spoiled divas that they are. This is a good starter if you want to get a grasp on what happened but, there are much better source materials such as "Inside Job" and Matt Taibbi's book - Griftopia.