Too Big to Fail (2011)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

There were portions of this movie that felt like this was a graphic novel adaptation of real events. The way some of the characters acted seemed far from realistic."Was it interesting?" For an explanation of the bailout from the inside out, this did well to explain everything. The few times when characters would summarize what has happened to someone were helpful but really out of place. These uninformed people really didn't understand everything that was going on or just how to explain it to the public? 2 out of 3."Was it memorable?" The actors did a great job impersonating their roles. The story seemed a little far fetched though.1.5 out of 3."Was it entertaining?" The movie did build suspense, and I never felt bored. Nothing jumps out either bad or good.1.5 out of 3.Starting with 1 (because of regulation), 1 + 2 + 1.5 + 1.5 = 6 A decent sit, but not one I will go out of my way to see again. William Hurt's performance actually had some emotion. Don't see that too often.

HBO and Peter Gould did a disservice to the American people by stuffing their nose up the ass of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve bank by not even coming close to laying blame where it belongs. The film is almost comical in its representation of Paulsen, Bernanke and Geithner. All three of these clowns are characterized as heroic as they struggle to save the American economy from collapsing. The film is mostly fiction and is clearly an attempt to hide the truth from the American people. I would recommend watching a more truthful depiction of what actually happened, as for example "Inside Job" which is actually a documentary and not a fictional representation. This is all in all, nothing but propaganda.

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.

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.