Inside Job is the scariest film I have ever seen. My stomach churned as image after image bounded on the screen explaining that the recent global financial crisis was not simply a result of a few years of rampant sub-prime lending. Actually, there was a 30-plus year long campaign by Wall Street and the U.S. Government officials (from both major parties) to deregulate financial industries and then create or support fraudulent and faulty get-rich-quick schemes that would leave them with fat pockets while Joe Public footed the bill. It felt like hearing that the bullies of old are winning, and BOOM, here’s another punch in the gut while they take your lunch money — oh, and retirement fund.
The film is written and directed by Charles Ferguson, who also directed the Oscar-nominated documentary No End in Sight about the occupation of Iraq. The film is narrated by Oscar winner Matt Damon. The documentary is quite dense, as a film of this nature is bound to be, but it does clearly point out a pattern of deregulation and the appointment of former financial board members or C-level employees to governmental regulatory bodies. Then, it outlines the collusion of banks, insurance agencies, financial ratings organizations and the government in an unstable system where the riskiest investments are rewarded with high payouts and no consequences. These practices are juxtaposed with post-depression policies that kept the U.S. economy solvent for 40 years.
The film does an excellent job of combining and distilling down the basic summary of the major issues that the disparate 24-hour news cycle, financial television networks, book publishers, financial magazines and news media simply cannot do — and, fortunately, it does it in less than two hours, so perhaps the general public will finally get it. The film intelligently outlines the players without condemning either major political party, because at the end of the day, everyone has a hand in it. The only emotional or subjective tones taken surface when interviewees are challenged on issues of conflict of interest or intentionally defrauding their clients.
The film also subtly points out that the crisis of 2008 can happen again. Fresh out of the “financial reforms” and bailouts of 2008 and 2009, the weary populous thirsts to hear that the worst is over. Government officials are providing just that with remarks that the economy is growing again. They point to congressional hearings where major financial leaders receive harsh tongue lashings as reform at work. One major element to ending this problem is educating future economists and stock brokers how not to repeat these mistakes. The opposite is true – our greatest educational institutions are churning out followers of this “rewritten economics.”
Larry Summers (Harvard), John Campbell (Harvard), Glenn Hubbard (Columbia), and Frederic Mishkin (Columbia) are just a few examples of major players in deregulation who teach students their version of economics without conscious; they earn most of their annual income from consultation and speaker’s fees with the world’s largest financial institutions. Couple that with the rising costs of education and the 20 million recently unemployed, underemployed or who’ve lost their savings, and we’ve got a growing legacy where only the richest children will be educated. The cycle begins again.
The major flaw of the film is that after 100 minutes of doom and gloom, a call to action entreats the audience to do something without any direction on what that “something” could be. Images of the Statue of Liberty and logic over the worthiness of the fight is a bold statement, but after showing the last four presidents, including current President Obama, continuing the practices of the status quo, it is unclear how “we the people” can do anything. One carrot the film offers is a call to investigate Wall Street’s use of prostitutes and drugs — often using company funds — being as powerful as convicting Al Capone for tax evasion. Then former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is all but asked how effective that course of action would be. The irony is palpable. The website www.insidejobfilm.com is offered for those who want to answer that call.
The film is a must see for every living and breathing person who puts her or his money in a bank, borrows money in the form of student loans, mortgage loans, or credit cards, and for investors who are curious about their current and future investments. In short, we all need to see this film. Inside Job is an official selection of the New York Film Festival and will be in limited release in New York on October 8 and in Los Angeles on October 15.
Limité Rating: 5/5
Director: Charles Ferguson
Writer: Charles Ferguson
Cast: Matt Damon (Narrator), Charles Morris, Eliot Spitzer, Andrew Sheng, Raghuram Rajan, Frederic Mishkin, Robert Gnaizda
Genre: Documentary
Runtime: 108 min.
Release Date: 10/8 (New York), 10/15 (Los Angeles) (limited)
