Too Big To Fail

A HBO original movie that debuted last night. The film was about the US' financial collapse in 2008, the collapse of Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros, the bailout of AIG, the stimulus package to the 10 leading banks, and Henry Paulson's (US Treasury Secretary) part in it all.

Ensemble cast included William Hurt as Paulson in the lead, but also performances from Topher Grace, Paul Giamatti, Ed Asner, and a scene-stealing James Woods as the Chairman of Lehman Bros.

I thought it was a real good and well done movie. It isn't the most penetrable, and can seem really esoteric, in the beginning especially. I was particularly interested in this, I am a Commerce degree graduate currently studying to be a CFA, so I was able to follow along no problem. I'm not sure if this will be same for everyone.

The film tries to paint Paulson as a "good guy", someone that kinda fucked up in the beginning, coupled with the financial bubble explosion which created the snowball effect, was backed into a corner to make the unpopular bail out decisions. The film tries to justify the bailouts stating that the financial system and the whole US economy were literally days away from collapsing and something had to be done. The film isn't all kind to Paulson tho, showing him as really naive at the end. In focusing on Paulson tho, they kinda danced around the real issue of deregulation, the real culprit of the collapse and subsequent aftermath of it, only mentioning it a few times throughout and in the epilogue.

Nonetheless, very interesting dramatization that seemed to be at least somewhat historically accurate, thats if your into this kind of thing. There really isn't too much to watch for in plot and character development, so unless your interested in the topic, probably not essential viewing for everyone else.