Too Big to Fail (2011 TV Movie) User Reviews

Well crafted and well acted but makes a false idol

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 9 December 2018]

Specifically, Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulsen is painted as having a great big unselfish S on his chest. I hate to parrot everyone else, but please watch "The Big Short" to see that everybody had blood on their hands.

HBO had to make SOMEBODY a hero in this, a film, not a documentary, so they chose Paulsen. In their version Paulsen is the somewhat naive guy who understands economics but does not understand human greed. The mechanics of what happened are well described. The dangers of what could have happened are well described. And there are several monologues where somebody - as part of conversation in a team meeting - explains how the big banks and investment houses got into this mess and then how AIG, the bank that insures the insurers, got swept up into everything.

The end of the film indicates that the big banks, with all of that fed supplied cash, just parked it and refused to loan it out - they were not required to do so - and the economy went into a downward spiral with hundreds of thousands losing their jobs and mortgage foreclosure becoming an epidemic.

I'd say the film is OK for grasping the basic mechanics of what went on, but understand it is a film and there has to be at least one hero - false or true - even if HBO is the producer and not Disney.

The Scariest Movie I've Ever Seen

[TheEconoclast · 8/10 · 1 June 2011]

I'm not kidding.

This is the scariest movie I've ever seen. But that's just me.

As some who works deep in the world of finance and lost sleep with the rest of Wall Street during that dark and disturbing week, it's possible that I'm a little too close to this story. It hits home. Thankfully, Too Big to Fail opens up a window so that the rest of world can look in from the safety of their living room.

Forget monsters, serial killers, and the nouveau low-budget movement of "two guys in a room with a camera and a ghost."

This is real. This happened. This could happen again.

You'll be terrified to see just how close to the brink we came, how close we were to one of the biggest economic disasters in human history. And you'll be shocked to learn about the types of personalities in which the rest of the planet has invested so much power and authority. Troubling, yes. But it's an important piece of history as well.

In terms of production HBO knocked this one out of the park. That's to be expected, I suppose, when you sign one of the great working American directors in Curtis Hanson and use one of the most highly respected chronicles of the financial crisis as your source material. Andrew Ross Sorkin even has a cameo and gets credit as a consulting producer to make sure they got the facts straight.

So it's no wonder such a brilliant, top shelf cast fell in line. HBO must have had their pick of the litter. The names in this movie are not only eerie facsimiles of their real life counterparts, but these are the actors that can really act.

The ever-dependable William Hurt is admirable in the lead, bring a little humanity to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, but it's the supporting performances that deserve special praise. Billy Crudup boils with intensity as an anxious, f-bomb dropping Tim Geithner, and Paul Giamatti perfectly captures the essence of Ben Bernanke, that quietly authoritative voice that the biggest egos in the world always shut up and listen to. Viewers at home will get a kick out of Ed Asner as Warren Buffett and, as is always the case with Buffett, his folksy charm serves as a bridge into to the arcane world of high finance. And former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld is appropriately vilified thanks to James Woods, not for being a greedy fraudster, but for being a sadly out-of- touch executive unable to adjust to a world that changed overnight. Despite Fuld's arrogance and bluster, Woods invests him with a subtle sense of dignity.

Too Big to Fail achieves a rare feat for talky dramas: it sustains acute tension for ninety full minutes, never slowing down and never climaxing prematurely.

Even if you're not a financial insider or policy wonk you'll be on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

Just don't watch it late at night.

Short and Sweet

[tristan-845-36941 · 8/10 · 29 May 2011]

After watching hours of news stories about the bank bailouts, I still never fully grasped what was going on - only the most broad outlines of it.

This movie explained it clearly - and, most shockingly, somebody made a movie about banking regulations that was interesting and engrossing.

Excellent cast at the top of their game - and first rate writing and directing. Check this one out!

(Disclaimer: If you need car chases, boobs-and-butts, terrorist bombings, food fights or sex and drugs to enjoy a film, skip this one! It's not going to be up your alley!)

Good, but giving the elites too much credit.

[croato87 · 6/10 · 3 January 2012]

This movie is good--one of the best on the financial crisis other than Inside Job. It goes into many of the most interesting details and decisions of the crisis while staying entertaining.

My problem with the film is that it makes it look like the politicians and CEOs involved in the decisions actually cared and got emotional about them. In reality, that is not the case. The decisions which greatly affected the lives of millions of Americans had little, if any, effect on the people who made them--hence the distinguishable apathy in their public appearances. These men and women are among the richest in the world, and they knew they would stay that way regardless of how the crisis played out. They cared about the crisis only to the extent that they needed not be late for their dinner dates.

All animals are equal But some animals are more equal than others.

"Too Big to Fail" Truly Succeeds

[LCRebbe · 8/10 · 6 June 2011]

This HBO produced film gives dialog and a behind-the-scenes feel to the 2008 financial debacle so perfectly exposed in "Inside Job."

The direction by Curtis Hanson is razor-clean cut, and the performances, especially by James Woods, Paul Giamatti and William Hurt underscore the irony that not one of the self-serving "public servants" has "served" one single day of jail time and continue to live their over-the-top, elegant lifestyles.

The effective use of actually news footage from our 24/7 news cycle serve as a percussive soundtrack as we watch the financial worlds of your "off the Street" American citizens self destruct at the hands of the Bush administration.

Thank you HBO for continuing to do what you have done so well for so many years!

Solid HBO Original Film

[ayochristian · 6/10 · 2 June 2011]

I want to start off with saying I don't really watch these types of movies where it deals with a lot of politics and such because I find them boring, but this is not the case for "Too Big to Fail." I was highly engrossed and very surprised. Quite a few familiar faces who all do an excellent job. Music score was top-notch; just as thrilling as Dark Knight or Inception's musical score. Cinematography on point. Overall great story based on a major crisis we are still recovering from. I tip my hat to the director and writers.

E D I T: Although this is a good film, it is fiction. The film falsely portrays Henry Paulson as some type of hero when in reality he is not. It's very entertaining for a political thriller but do yourself a favor and watch Inside Job.

simplified but still nauseating story of the big bank bailout

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 6 December 2013]

"Let's see," says PR person Michele Davis, played by Cynthia Nixon, "we can't put any more restrictions on the way the banks are going to spend the $125 billion we're giving them, because they might not TAKE it?" Yeah, Michele, if you tell them they can't pay big fat bonuses with it and fund golden parachutes, they won't take it.

We all know that the banks were bailed out, and "Too Big To Fail" purports to tell us the real story. It doesn't because in order for it to be a movie, there have to be good guys and bad guys. Since it was all bad guys, it's a little skewered.

The good guy of the piece is that hard-working Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, beautifully portrayed by William Hurt. In the story, Paulson nearly has a nervous breakdown trying to save the world economy after investment companies start going bankrupt.

It's pointed out that Paulson has no conflict of interest even though he used to run Goldman Sachs because he dumped his stock in the company. That's true. Not mentioned was that for some reason he didn't have to pay any taxes on the sale, something like $50 million.

Then we get to the let's bail out AIG because they're in bed with everybody. Yeah. Their big creditor was Goldman Sachs. Paulson cheated the taxpayers out of $75 billion because, in order for Goldman to get all their money, he didn't negotiate the bailout.

He's the big hero, the one whose wife (Kathy Baker) tells him he's taking on too much. So you can imagine what the rest of this movie was like when we got down to the real bad guys, the banks.

Many people in the film ask, why didn't anyone see this coming? I have some other questions. Why didn't anyone know Bernie Madoff was a crook? Why didn't anyone know banks were lending money to dummy corporations at Enron? Paulson gives us the answer, "They were all making too much money, so nobody asked." The thieves, liars, guys with their heads in the sand, helpers, and pacifiers were played by a wonderful cast: John Hurd, James Wood, Billy Crudupp, Tony Shalhoub, Paul Giamatti, Cynthia Nixon, and Ed Asner. Asner played Warren Buffett, the only one with any money. As Ben Bernanke, Paul Giametti gives another standout performance.

Curtis Hanson did a brilliant job of directing -- one felt the tension and suspense every step of the way.

On a final note, the banks were given money so they could loan it out. Instead, they loaned out less. Their bonuses reached a peak in 2010, the highest amounts ever. Mattresses are looking better and better.

An all right original film of the economic meltdown, and how government bails them out one by one!

[blanbrn · 7/10 · 30 May 2011]

This HBO original film "Too Big to Fail" shows one by one how the major financial companies took a dive one by one all by risky investments with lenders money. And the selling of bad mortgage loans and fake stock lead to the downfall of AIG, Bank of America, Merill Lynch, and Leman Brothers. And sadly as we see in this film as many Americans remember the American tax payer had to bail each out with their tax dollars when the federal government in Washington D.C. decided for it.

Director Curtis Hanson is true to form in this film as it was adapted from Andrew Ross Sorkin's book of the same name. The performances in the film are spot on especially that of William Hurt as treasury secretary Henry Paulson and veteran Paul Giamatti as fed chair Ben Bernanke. Also it was nice seeing James Woods and Cynthia Nixon("Sex and the City")in small roles, plus a delight was Ed Asner as Warren Buffet. This film proved what we all know the big financial companies and government people are tied in together and corrupt and the average Joe foots the bill for their escape as they clearly are "To Big To Fail"

Accurate Portrayal of our Economic Condition

[Richie-67-485852 · 10/10 · 29 May 2011]

As a Real Estate Broker watching this movie, I felt all my beliefs on the subject matter of our current economic failings confirmed. The movie connects the dots and portrays accurately how big money is managed by big people. The little guy actually has no say at all and is just along for the ride. One also sees how fragile everything is if it doesn't work properly. One has thoughts of returning to farming and hunting and living in a nice cabin as a sure thing in these uncertain economic, misrepresented times. Also, our friends the Saudis are no where to be found in this movie which desperately searches for bail-out money. Trillions sit in the middle east frozen for fear of assinations if help is offered to USA is this commentors opinion...Excellent movie but no closure because we are still living in the problem....

Too Big to Fail and Too Big to Trivialize

[clydedesper · 8/10 · 29 May 2011]

"Too Big to Fail" addresses the subject of modern-day mega corporations whose failure, however deserving, might be of such catastrophic dimensions that it must be avoided, if at all possible, whatever the cost. The subject matter, the US financial crisis of 2008, is profound and enormous, in terms of its shock at the time and continuing consequences, to trivialize. The main characters – William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, for instance – become aware of the distinct possibility of spiraling into a 21st century version of The Great Depression. We are awestruck by such a possibility. The plot forces at work are both economic and political, both having profound influences. Politics? As usual, it is the Art of the Possible. Economics? A very difficult-to-comprehend arena, neither art nor science. The story leads us, step by step, as numerous characters play their role on this stage. The message: How could they have been so stupid? The filmmakers have hit the nail on the head.

Isn't the real story

[nijat00 · 6/10 · 30 March 2019]

I almost believed, if I hadn't watched "Inside Job". These guys, especially Hank Paulson, were the main "architectures" of financial crisis. Hank Paulson loaded the huge amount of toxic assets and sold them. They made a huge profit. Afterwards, he sold his shares and became SEC secretary.

But all this movie does is showing him as a hero. Maybe he did something to fix the economy, but it doesn't change the fact that he personally and SEC are as culprit as those banks. If SEC had done its job, we wouldn't have been talking about any crisis.

Paulson was no altruistic hero

[kelly-ann-mchale · 5/10 · 18 August 2011]

Unfortunately the filmmakers felt the need to create a "hero" of the piece -- unlike the source book, which simply tells what happened. They chose Henry Paulson (William Hurt), ex-Goldman Sachs CEO turned Treasury Secretary. But the real-life Paulson is no hero.

The film makes a point that Paulson sold all his Goldman stock before becoming Treasury Sec, but fails to point out that he was excused from all taxes on the sale, which saved him upwards of $50 million.

The film also whitewashes Paulson's $150 billion AIG bailout, claiming that AIG owed money to almost everybody in the world. In fact, AIG's largest creditor was, that's right, Goldman Sachs. Paulson failed to negotiate a hard-nosed payout of AIG's obligations, such as offering creditors 50c on the dollar, which the creditors would have had no choice but to accept. This would have saved US taxpayers a cool $75 billion. But it would have hurt Paulson's pals at Goldman.

My point being, Paulson was thoroughly compromised, and managed to feather his own nest and that of his old pals. What next? A stirring depiction of Dick Cheney's altruistic hiring of Halliburton in Iraq? This shortcoming aside, the film clips along nicely, and it's fun to see so many name actors portraying the Wall Street titans. James Woods is a perfect Dick Fuld.

Scary and True

[mchl88 · 7/10 · 27 November 2023]

This was kinda like the Big Short but without the funny parts.

Admittedly what I know about banking could fit on the head of a pin but the overall message that the banks caused the problem and then we bailed them out with nary a restriction on how they used the money was very believable for me because, why not? As my mom always used to say, the rich get richer

This is the quote from the movie that boggles my mind: "There is not a bank in the world that has enough money in its vault to pay its depositors. It's all built on trust."

I read this in a book recently about money and how it's all built on trust. Someone hands you a twenty dollar bill, what is it really worth? The paper and ink mean nothing. It's the belief that someone else will accept it for $20 worth of goods or services that makes it valuable. Our whole system is based on that faith and it's scary when you really stop to think about it. Movies like this make you do just that.

I THOUGHT I saw this movie before.

[demetrios999 · 7/10 · 8 June 2011]

This movie feels like the financial version of the 2003 Showtime movie 9/11 DC Time of Crisis, a retelling of history designed to make the participants look better than they deserved.

Anyone who watched the news channels saw Bush in 2001 and Paulson in 2008 with "deer in headlights" expressions and responses that made it clear that they were just overwhelmed and really did not have a clue, not the calm, cool and collected versions shown in these respective films.

"Too Big to Fail" is well acted and casted and is an interesting two hours, but should not be taken as history.

first rate actors

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 27 January 2017]

It's early 2008 and Lehman Brothers is falling. CEO Dick Fuld (James Woods) is stand-fast as he rejects an offer from Warren Buffett. He's not willing to sell low as he expects to weather the storm. A few months later, Lehman Brothers is collapsing. Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson (William Hurt), Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, and President of the New York Fed Tim Geithner among others are struggling to gather private interests to bail out the failing investment bank as the contagion spreads.

The actors are first rate. I assume the writing is well-researched. It's a relatively clear telling of the events. As a narrative, it does lack the tension of an unknown story and the clarity of one lead character. This is a good companion piece to other docs about the subject.

Delivers the Nuts and Bolts

[view_and_review · 9/10 · 16 December 2021]

"Too Big To Fail" was an incredible production. With the help of some big Hollywood names HBO Films took a massively complex catastrophe and framed it where financially and politically illiterate people like myself could understand. While the documentary "Inside Job" approached the '08 housing and financial collapse more comprehensively, and "Margin Call" approaches it from the moments before, "Too Big To Fail" looks at the bustling hours and days of the collapse and the moves made to stave off a full scale disaster. The movie is go go go. There's no time for exposition, no time for character development, no time for violins; they barely notched out any time to explain what happened. With a lesser movie, or a movie of lesser significance, these could be looked at as negatives. With this movie I think the audience was glad to eschew dramatic build up, character development, Chekov's gun, and all the other theatrical devices. Get to the nitty gritty. Who did what and why, and how did the Congress come to the decision it made? "Too Big To Fail" delivers the nuts and bolts promptly, succinctly, and effectively.

Good review of the financial mess

[bryanmillsfist · 7/10 · 12 June 2011]

This story is subject to partisan prejudices as evidenced by another reviewer's assertion that the highly biased "Inside Job" is the "truth".

To HBO's credit they resisted the temptation to use this sordid affair as a platform for opinion like Charles Ferguson did in "Inside Job". Instead they took a bare bones approach to the story. They give the viewer a summation of the events leading up to the government bailouts.This also hurts the story as character development is fairly shallow and the plot itself requires foreknowledge of the economic environment surrounding these events.

Considering that these events occurred so recently any expectation that you will receive the complete story is unrealistic. Any person who thinks that the truth will be so quickly revealed is kidding themselves. There are facts that are still unknown that in time will be revealed. However, this movie does a good job of presenting the facts we do know in lay terms with resorting to the histrionics of propaganda films like "Inside Job".

The actors do a solid job of portraying the individuals involved. There is no unnecessary depictions of personal foibles that do not in some way relate to the story. The acting is sober and fair,which is appropriate for this film's aim of presenting a factual narrative of the controversial events.

Overall, I believe this movie to be a solid, objective, presentation of the financial mess of 2008. That some ideologues on IMDb object to that should not deter you. This movie is a good intro to what is a complex subject that requires far more then reading articles on the Internet to truly understand.

Sympathy? No

[happel317 · 5/10 · 22 March 2012]

The movie itself was put together very well following the chronicles of the fiasco that unfolded during the credit crunch. Where it went horribly wrong is by humanizing Hank Paulson. Making him seem vulnerable and genuine and sincere. It has recently been published that Saint Paulson tipped off 20 or so hedge funds about the coming collapse so they could unload their positions. And this film is attempting to portray him as the victim and the hero and laud him with applause for working so diligently on this problem. His colleagues at Goldman cleaned up on the CDS contracts betting on the inevitable crisis they knew was coming. James Woods did a very good job at making Dick Fuld's loathsome character believable, though.

Not Too Petty To Fail

[roper1-110-4447 · 18 July 2011]

You can look at a movie like this two ways: as an accurate representation of the source and as a piece of drama. Too Big To Fail is not too big to fail on both counts.

I should have known to expect with a cast that sports the likes of Ed Asner, but the degree of the left-wing Hollywood spin that they put on the story was stilling annoying. They just can't let go of a chance push their ant-business agenda, even if it means inventing new scenes and even directly contradicting the source book itself. Talking about painting the lilly! Exhibit #1: There was an invented scene about 2/3 of the way through the film apparently designed to explain the roots of the calamity. They throw around terms like CDO and CDS so fast that anyone unfamiliar with the book and the background to the financial crisis would have no clue what they were talking about. They then whitewash the home owners as victims, just poor dupes swindled by the unethical mortgage brokers. In reality, of course, many of these were greedy people living way beyond their means using their houses as piggy banks while many others were pure speculators. We don't hear anything blame about the likes of left wing heroes Barney Frank and Charles Shumer who lit the fuse on the whole mess by demanding that banks make mortgages available to the poor. There is not a word about the Quants whose unrealistic risk models told bankers that such a disaster could never happen. We don't hear about the corruption of the ratings agencies, collapse of the carry trade, etc. No, there is only room for one villain in the Hollywood left villain pantheon – big business CEO's.

Exhibit #2: The ending is another invented scene that is thoroughly misleading. They have Paulson pleading that he hopes that the banks will lend out the TARP money as intended to stimulate the economy. Then there is a prologue saying that the banks didn't. This is pure rubbish. In the book, Sorkin makes it perfectly clear that this was not the purpose of TARP. It was to stabilize the financial world by injecting capital to deleverage the banks and to rebuild investor confidence. The banks could not lend money because it would push their leverage back up. But Hollywood isn't interested in what Sorkin said, if they can take another parting potshot at big business.

Leftwing distortions aside, Too Big To Fail was simply very dull. For a while, it is amusing to see actors who look so much like their real-life counterparts, especially Paul Giamati as a Ben Bernanke clone and Evan Handler's amazing resemblance to Lloyd Blankfeld. But the characters are uniformly dull. Even scene that should be great theater (e. g., Paulson kneeling before Nancy Pelosi) come across a dead and perfunctory. The only breaking in the dullness is James Woods' way over the top portrayal of Dick Fuld. It bordered on comic relief.

The book just didn't work as a movie. The book was a series of vignettes, whose complexity reflected the complexity of the actual crisis. The story lurches from vignette to vignette with not real plot or story developing. Further, the need to boil the book down into typical movie running time also meant that they drastically has to simply and shorten many of the events to the point of losing the real story. The collapse was not the kind of linear event that works on the screen.

In sum, the movie fails as both history and as drama. A much better movie about the financial disaster could have been made from Michael Lewis's highly entertaining "The Big Short," that amusingly tells the story from the viewpoint of a few quirky Wall Street outsiders who saw the collapse coming and the problems that they encountered by running contrary to popular wisdom. It's the same story, but a lot more fun. But there would have been some sympathetic businessmen characters. The Hollywood lefties wouldn't want that.

Best Disaster Movie In Recent Years

[mad_man_moon · 7/10 · 16 July 2011]

And it is a disaster movie, with the unfortunate happenstance of being completely true.

I would say that this is an actors piece, most definitely, with not a poor performance (although some perhaps hackneyed) within.

I would also say that, since it's a disaster movie, we might have been given some more of that disaster at the death ... instead of the horrible thing said twice to make it mean more.

You should watch this, and make everyone else that you know watch it. Let them know how close we came, and how close we are right now, to complete disaster.

A movie that did the impossible. Explained the crisis in a way that's understandable & made the gov't the good guy. I say A

[cosmo_tiger · 8/10 · 7 June 2012]

"Wall street has a gambling problem and the government keeps covering their losses. They never learn anything." In 2008 the United States economy began to crumble. Bank after bank began to fail and Lehman Brothers (the 4th largest) was on the ropes. Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson (Hurt), Federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke (Giamatti) and New York Fed President Tim Geithner (Crudup) all are working to try and save it. They more they find out the worse it gets and they are left with a decision to save the country or the bank. But the answer isn't as easy as it sounds. I know what your thinking. Another movie about this, hasn't there been enough? Normally I would agree but this one had Paul Giamatti so I had to watch it. This one stands far above the other ones made about the crisis and also is pretty impressive in the way it is presented. This movie made the crisis and the reasons for what was done simple enough for me to understand. Unlike the others this one is about how the government handled it and not the Wall Street CEO's which is why I didn't want to throw stuff at the TV as much. This movie was all the more impressive in the way that it really made the government the good guy in this whole mess and made you side with them. Which is almost impossible to do these days. This to me has been the best movie made about the crisis. Overall, if you watch one movie about the meltdown and the economic crisis make it this one. I recommend this. I say A.

I liked it

[motorfocus82 · 7/10 · 17 August 2012]

This is getting seven out of ten from me because it cut a good line between being informative and entertaining. It tried to be human and occasionally witty, particularly with the whitewashing of Paulson, while blasting through events at rapid speed. It needed to, because a lot was attempted and a lot happened. While the human side wasn't always perfectly effective, the sequence of events and the reasoning behind the actions is fairly clear, enough so to remind me all about what happened and how much worse things could be. Not the greatest entertainment, but effective if you come in with an interest in the material.

I wouldn't have bothered with the review at all were it not for the other reviews on here, which seem to be angry at a straightforward narrative decision to focus on Paulson and make him look like a decent human being, which is evidently unforgivable. This attitude is exactly why I've lost empathy for the average American over the last few years and gained it for people in positions of major responsibility. I'm tired of the wholesale apotheosis of the pathetic. Paulson made some genuinely good moves, and putting more decisions in the hands of the stupid multitude would have made everything worse. Hardly anyone complained about the vivisection of Glass-Steagal when it happened, which makes sense because hardly anyone really understands modern banking anyway. So I made my decision: I dropped the brain-dead populism, I stopped finding any excuse to help abdicate responsibility for the fools who bought too much house they couldn't afford, and I'm not joining any more choruses of those begging for bailouts for millions of ordinary people who couldn't keep their job or find a new one. Living helplessly doesn't garner my attention anymore. Most of the people involved in the story here went along with a broadly shared delusion of value in CDO/MBS's, then tried to pull off some damage control in a hugely complicated situation, meeting with some success while not always being smart about who to trust. The masses go along with delusions constantly, too, and they have no better record on choosing who to trust, Washington. I'm more inspired by power used competently, or even semi-competently, than inspired to throw up a middle finger because I don't feel like being a grown up anymore. Why do so many reviewers find juvenile finger-pointing worthwhile, anyway?

Fantastic Dramatization

[toaksie · 10/10 · 16 June 2012]

This was a fantastic view on the internal workings of the 2008 crisis. Not since the west wing have we seen such excellent political drama. It may not of been perfectly accurate in terms of how things took place but the humanization of tight dialogue of those involved displayed an intelligent and brilliant representation. This would have been a top class thriller if it wasn't so real. The calculated building of tension and the memory of how things took place left the viewer both shocked and tense at the knife edge that we were balancing upon, the relief short lived with the knowledge that we continue in a world where similar issues and the fallout are still so relevant.

Well-written, fast-moving film with great production values and an all-star cast

[fredrikgunerius · 7/10 · 21 October 2023]

Too Big to Fail is an HBO produced TV movie about the weeks leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown in the United States, and how representatives for the Treasury Department worked day and night to find solutions for the country's largest financial institutions, and then try to convince their leaders that they needed to accept those solutions. It is a well-written, fast-moving and rather technical film with great production values and an all-star cast. There is no doubt that the power balance between TV dramas and cinematic releases is in serious change.

The director is Curtis Hanson, and it seems he was concerned with making his film as unpolitical as he could. The good thing about this is that the result is quite unbiased when it comes to the political scale. It is clear that the filmmakers wanted to scrutinize systems and structures rather than politics. The downside is that the film has ended up feeling a little naive. Most of the people portrayed in this film come off as quite noble, something which compared to last year's documentary Inside Job is more than a little lenient. I choose to think that the reason for this is that director Curtis Hanson isn't out to scapegoat or point fingers at anyone with his film, but rather to in a compelling and balanced way tell the story about what happened (or almost happened) over the course of a few weeks back in 2008. He paints a terrifying picture of the fragility of the financial system once the different parties start mistrusting one another, and this is the real effect of Too Big to Fail. As nations and entire economies once again face enormous economic problems these days, the gloomy message Too Big to Fail tells is that this will all happen again.

The script is adapted by Peter Gould from the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, who works as a reporter with The New York Times. His knowledge about the state of affairs during the meltdown certainly seems comprehensive based on this account, but of course, a dissection such as this will be coloured by the point of view. As directed by Curtis Hanson, Too Big to Fail is a tidy and not overly critical account which is both entertaining and compelling. And the acting is solid, with William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, Billy Crudup and James Woods all giving fine performances.

Interesting and informative

[grantss · 8/10 · 29 January 2024]

Interesting and informative docu-drama. Examines the 2008 GFC and behind-the-scenes dealings between the US Treasury, US Federal Reserve and the major US banks. Includes the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the bailout of AIG and TARP.

Can be a bit dry, and seemed dragged out at times, but it would be difficult to make the subject anything more than that.

All-star cast delivers in spades. William Hurt is great as Hank Paulson.

Better than the made-for-TV movie "The Last Days of Lehman Brothers", though that wasn't bad. Having seen "The Last Days..." first, I kept getting the feeling I had watched "Too Big To Fail" before, some of the scenes are so similar.

The definitive film on the GFC is still "Inside Job" though. Not strictly comparable with "Too Big To Fail", as Inside Job was strictly a documentary (not a re-enacted drama), and Inside Job's canvas was a lot broader, with much room for comment and editorialising.