| William Hurt stars in the HBO original film from Curtis Hanson, "Too Big to Fail" |
A tale with the 2008 financial meltdown comes to HBO, with straightforward direction by Curtis Hanson along with a sizable cast led by William Hurt.
"Too Massive to Fail," which premieres Monday on HBO, is the most up-to-date of that network's high-toned original films ("Recount," "The Late Shift," "From the Earth to the Moon," the upcoming "Game Change") in which a big cast of medium-big-to-big-named actors assume the skin of the real folks to place you backstage at background. In this situation - the story of the 2008 economic meltdown as well as the try to retain us all from ruin - the paint is barely dry on the actual events. Indeed, their ongoing consequences will affect the next election.
Directed by Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential," "8 Mile") from a screenplay by Peter Gould ("Breaking Bad") and determined by Andrew Ross Sorkin's book of the same name, "Too Massive to Fail" is quite constant low-key entertainment if not precisely enlightening (for the reason that it is an impersonation of the truth) or gripping (due to the fact we already know how it sort of ends). Structurally, it truly is a little like an episode of "House," a series of surgeries and injections requiring further surgeries and injections but without having the tidy fourth-act cure, along with a little like a disaster film, where the disaster is nonetheless rumbling on in the movie's end, just not as awfully because it could possibly have, and also a small like a samurai film, exactly where the soldiers carry cellphones rather than swords, minus the action. Hanson's direction is admirably straightforward; he doesn't try and compensate for what is basically a story of wealthy white men talking about funds with overcomposed or flashy visuals or an unsettling sound style
In some respects I am a bear of small brain. Fannie Mae will usually be the title of a Buster Brown song to me, and at initially a great deal with the matter right here and lots of with the several characters went by in a blur of blue suits and gobbledygook - considerably like my expertise of the crisis itself, for that matter. At some point, the players resolve vaguely into teams, following which watching is less about keeping the lots of details straight than tracking the power flow.
Nonetheless, the filmmakers have tried to touch every one of the important bases, and there are actually possibly six lines in the film that do not prompt one particular to ask, "Will this be on the test?" (There is 1 about doughnuts, 1 about oatmeal, a single about a hawk, a single about a frog, a single about Christian Science and 1 about Al Capone's gun; they may be supposed to add a dash of naturalism, and they stick out a mile.) Simply because they have a whole lot to let you know, movies like "Too Big to Fail" inevitably have something with the shorthand top quality of a Presidents Day pageant: "Who has chopped down my cherry tree?" "It was I, with my small hatchet." "God bless you, Mr. President!"
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson (William Hurt) is our hero right here, flanked by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke (Paul Giamatti) and then-president with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Timothy F. Geithner (Billy Crudup). With the bankers and income guys - played by the power-suited likes of Tony Shalhoub, Bill Pullman, Michael O'Keefe and Matthew Modine - only James Woods' Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, constitutes additional than a cameo, in component because Lehman was the firm that was allowed to fail and in element mainly because Fuld's famously tough demeanor guaranteed him screen time. As assistance staff on Team Paulson, Topher Grace, Cynthia Nixon, Joey Slotnick and Ayad Akhtar all do heavy lifting lightly.
The film's main argument, definitely, is the fact that we need to look kindly upon Paulson along with the finest he tried to do; the other characters we rate by no matter whether they enable or hinder him. What moral voice there exists right here mostly comes out of his mouth. "We've been late on every thing," he admits, and admits also that nobody in energy needed to regulate the monetary business due to the fact "We had been making an excessive amount of income." (That is about as pointed as the film gets on the topic of corporate greed.) Hurt, who (like his costars) seems to be playing the script as opposed to imitating the individual whose name he bears, is a tall tower of movie-star appeal, and it will not hurt our opinion of Paulson that Kathy Baker plays his wife, even though she has not much to do but sympathize.
Analysis: 'Too Huge to Fail' captures the frustration of government officials and also the arrogance of Wall Street leaders
The HBO docudrama accurately depicts the panic that gripped the Federal Reserve Bank along with the Treasury Department as they scrambled to prevent another Wonderful Depression
Midway by means of the HBO docudrama "Too Huge to Fail," the head with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York despairs that ordinary Americans "have no thought the whole point is about to fall down."
He's referring not for the stock industry, which already was plunging as the global monetary crisis struck in late-2008, but to the total U.S. economic climate because the conflagration on Wall Street threatened to spread far wider.
I covered Wall Street for The Times during that period, and also the movie accurately depicts the panic that gripped the Fed as well as the Treasury Department - and at some point a slow-to-comprehend Wall Street - as they scrambled to avert an additional Excellent Depression.
The movie, depending on a book by New York Occasions columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, captures the frustration of government officials as each hole they patched was followed by an even larger leak.
"Too Large to Fail," which premieres Monday, hews closely to actual events. But like most docu-dramas, it does condense events and conjure dialogue that never ever took location.
As an example, Richard Fuld, the chief executive of Lehman Bros. does not appear to have uttered the sacrilegious "screw Warren Buffett" remark when the famed investor offered to purchase a stake within the organization at what the CEO viewed as a fire-sale value. Fuld did, having said that, reject Buffett's proposal and, inside weeks, Lehman tipped into a record-setting bankruptcy that dwarfed earlier failures like Enron Corp.
In an business of aggressive personalities, Fuld was infamous for his drive and intensity - also as his clenched jaw as well as the angry scowl that seemed to be permanently soldered onto his face. A mediocre student surrounded by Ivy Leaguers, Fuld was a gritty trader who was determined to push Lehman into Wall Street's elite.
One more scene that in all probability was embellished - and was not in Sorkin's book - was when Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson supposedly yelled at then-presidential nominee John McCain. Inside the movie version, Paulson barks at McCain that if the Arizona senator does not back his plans, the subsequent Terrific Depression are going to be his fault.
But quite a few of the much more vivid moments, for example the stress-induced vomiting of Paulson, are grafted directly from the book. Also, the film's take on Christopher Cox, then chairman with the Securities and Exchange Commission, asking - hesitantly and incompetently - for the Lehman bankruptcy closely matches Sorkin's perform too.
An additional pair of dramatic scenes - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's exhorting lawmakers to fund a substantial Wall Street bailout and Paulson's summoning Wall Street CEOs for a fateful meeting - occurred largely as shown. "Too Large to Fail" aptly conveys Wall Street's transformation from boom-era complacency to nail-biting angst.
The Masters with the Universe - as Tom Wolfe dubbed them in "The Bonfire of the Vanities," his fictionalized 1987 portrayal of Wall Street excess - toggled from greed to fear. They loathed the thought of aiding rivals but became spooked by the deteriorating economic program - not to mention the threat to their sumptuous lifestyles.
The movie deviates from Sorkin's book by creating Paulson - the former head of Goldman Sachs who reluctantly had agreed to come to be Treasury secretary two years earlier - the spine of the narrative. He engaged in high-stakes brinksmanship to coax banks to fortify themselves as a result of mergers and lawmakers to steady the economic system by a $700-billion bailout.
Set several months following the government had rescued Bear Stearns by midwifing its sale to JPMorgan Chase, Paulson prods Lehman, the smallest with the 4 remaining investment banks, to raise capital to stop a domino impact on other banks.
He exerted as much pressure as he could on Fuld, whose denial of his company's mounting crisis led to its destruction. Lehman had survived a near-death experience in the early 1980s, and Fuld was convinced it could yet again.
Even though Lehman sank, the cumulative efforts to revive the monetary method plus the global economy eventually took hold. The U.S. economic system remains soft to this day. Nonetheless it could have already been substantially worse
The HBO docudrama accurately depicts the panic that gripped the Federal Reserve Bank along with the Treasury Department as they scrambled to prevent another Wonderful Depression
Midway by means of the HBO docudrama "Too Huge to Fail," the head with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York despairs that ordinary Americans "have no thought the whole point is about to fall down."
He's referring not for the stock industry, which already was plunging as the global monetary crisis struck in late-2008, but to the total U.S. economic climate because the conflagration on Wall Street threatened to spread far wider.
I covered Wall Street for The Times during that period, and also the movie accurately depicts the panic that gripped the Fed as well as the Treasury Department - and at some point a slow-to-comprehend Wall Street - as they scrambled to avert an additional Excellent Depression.
The movie, depending on a book by New York Occasions columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, captures the frustration of government officials as each hole they patched was followed by an even larger leak.
"Too Large to Fail," which premieres Monday, hews closely to actual events. But like most docu-dramas, it does condense events and conjure dialogue that never ever took location.
As an example, Richard Fuld, the chief executive of Lehman Bros. does not appear to have uttered the sacrilegious "screw Warren Buffett" remark when the famed investor offered to purchase a stake within the organization at what the CEO viewed as a fire-sale value. Fuld did, having said that, reject Buffett's proposal and, inside weeks, Lehman tipped into a record-setting bankruptcy that dwarfed earlier failures like Enron Corp.
In an business of aggressive personalities, Fuld was infamous for his drive and intensity - also as his clenched jaw as well as the angry scowl that seemed to be permanently soldered onto his face. A mediocre student surrounded by Ivy Leaguers, Fuld was a gritty trader who was determined to push Lehman into Wall Street's elite.
One more scene that in all probability was embellished - and was not in Sorkin's book - was when Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson supposedly yelled at then-presidential nominee John McCain. Inside the movie version, Paulson barks at McCain that if the Arizona senator does not back his plans, the subsequent Terrific Depression are going to be his fault.
But quite a few of the much more vivid moments, for example the stress-induced vomiting of Paulson, are grafted directly from the book. Also, the film's take on Christopher Cox, then chairman with the Securities and Exchange Commission, asking - hesitantly and incompetently - for the Lehman bankruptcy closely matches Sorkin's perform too.
An additional pair of dramatic scenes - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's exhorting lawmakers to fund a substantial Wall Street bailout and Paulson's summoning Wall Street CEOs for a fateful meeting - occurred largely as shown. "Too Large to Fail" aptly conveys Wall Street's transformation from boom-era complacency to nail-biting angst.
The Masters with the Universe - as Tom Wolfe dubbed them in "The Bonfire of the Vanities," his fictionalized 1987 portrayal of Wall Street excess - toggled from greed to fear. They loathed the thought of aiding rivals but became spooked by the deteriorating economic program - not to mention the threat to their sumptuous lifestyles.
The movie deviates from Sorkin's book by creating Paulson - the former head of Goldman Sachs who reluctantly had agreed to come to be Treasury secretary two years earlier - the spine of the narrative. He engaged in high-stakes brinksmanship to coax banks to fortify themselves as a result of mergers and lawmakers to steady the economic system by a $700-billion bailout.
Set several months following the government had rescued Bear Stearns by midwifing its sale to JPMorgan Chase, Paulson prods Lehman, the smallest with the 4 remaining investment banks, to raise capital to stop a domino impact on other banks.
He exerted as much pressure as he could on Fuld, whose denial of his company's mounting crisis led to its destruction. Lehman had survived a near-death experience in the early 1980s, and Fuld was convinced it could yet again.
Even though Lehman sank, the cumulative efforts to revive the monetary method plus the global economy eventually took hold. The U.S. economic system remains soft to this day. Nonetheless it could have already been substantially worse
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