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Article by David.

‘Inside Job’ is a feature length and somewhat controversial documentary film about the 2008 economic crisis. It attempts to expose the “shocking truth” behind it.

Through extensive research and interviews; academy award nominated director Charles Ferguson (‘No End In Sight’) explores the rise of Wall Street and the banking industry and reveals the dirty deals between corrupted politicians; regulatory organizations and academics - and showcases how these deals led to what is said to be “The worst financial crisis since the Great depression” - oh, and its narrated by Matt Damon! Because if anyone knows about money its him! (I’m just kidding - Matt Damon is awesome).

Here is a reading from the directors statement:

“I hope that the film, in less than two hours, will enable everyone to understand the fundamental nature and causes of this problem. It is also my hope that, whatever political opinions individual viewers may have, that after seeing this film we can all agree on the importance of restoring honesty and stability to our financial system, and of holding accountable those who destroyed it”.

The film itself is a little bit more difficult to digest than Ferguson would lead you to believe; certain moments are definitely overwhelming in terms of how much sheer information is being dumped onto you; but that is not say it is impossible to understand whats going on in ‘Inside Job’; unless you yourself are in the financial industry.

The film begins with using Iceland’s current situation as a microcosm to basically summarize the effects the financial collapse has had on the world economy. From there it goes into a very entertaining title sequences that presents us “The Cast” of the film: taking all these bullshit artists we are about to hear from and displaying them for the actors they are. Very funny; if not slightly mean spirited and biased. These bullsh*tters… and I should clarify I say: “bullsh*tters” in the sense that they are talking to us; not that they are specifically liars:  but whatever: the point is that we don’t know the truth so it may as well be B/S…well: these guys are so varied in breadth and a lot of the people interviewed are very high profile as well as unexpected/exciting choices.

Amongst many financial advisors/university professors/ company ceo’s/ Ministers/ etc; we have some of particular interest: And by that I mean: “damn thats an usual person to interview!”:

Jonathon Alpert: One of the biggest psychiatrists in New York; whose clients include some of the huge wall street players - he tells stories about their drug habits and strip club and prostitute habits. His clients are very well known and married with children. Insane.

Kristin Davis: Known as “madam” to countless investment bankers. A pimp of the classiest order:

Then you have the usual slew of ‘significant authorities’ on a subject matter: the ones I found of particular interest are:

Christine Lagarde: The french minister of Finance/economic affairs/ industry and employment. First woman to become the economic minister of a G8 nation.

Lee Hsien Loong: The current prime minister of Singapore.

Andrew Lo: the director of MIT’s laboratory for financial engineering.

Andri Magnason: An Icelandic film-maker.

Martin Wolf: the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.

Glenn Hubbard: A scoundrel. Chief economic advisor of the Bush administration. Also the current dean of Columbia university business school.

Harvey MIller: The most prominent Bankruptcy lawyer in the United States.

Frederic Mishkin: American economist and professor at Columbia University. This guy is crazy corrupt.

Paul Vocker: American Economist who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve under Carter and Reagan.

And so on and so on…

The film features many, many interviewees from all sides of the financial disaster; from famous economists; to Professors; to government people - The majority of the film is just people sitting in chairs talking whilst animated graphics fill the screen. It is decidedly uncinematic -  the entire film just feels like a big long lecture - sometimes it is hard to follow - other times the actions of the people onscreen enrage you - and in my case (someone who knows next to nothing about financial engineering) it was incredibly interesting and engaging.

But it is not a film that exists just to show off how smart and important it is: It attempts to tell the full story of the crisis; and to not allow the many criminals to get away with what they have done - you see the industry is filled with corruption and greed; the progressive deregulations of the financial sector since the 1980’s led to an increase in “innovations” - which are thinly disguised power-plays for money/control. Ultimately all of these bankers are not the ones affected by such moves and innovations; it is the family with a mortgage - the family with debt: basically the poorer sections of society.

In many cases the bankers came out RICHER after the crisis than before. And because of corruption-filled relationships with academics (who then go and teach these bad practices to the next generation) - who have relationships with the government (many academics advise not only the banks but also the government - earning 100’s of thousands more dollars than teaching would ever earn them. Everybody is in bed with each other - and through the excessive amounts of bullsh*t; whether it be through a team of lawyers or face to face with a judge; everyone just comes out unscathed. No-one gets sent to prison despite the trillions of dollars they are responsible for losing.

The financial system is such a complicated topic and the film tracks it from right after the great depression - through to the Reagan Presidency - through to the Clinton reign - through to the Bush reign - and into Obama and the present. Dealing with topics such as: traditional American finance options; The  start of deregulation; The Wall Street culture; financial scandals; economic inequality issues; tax cuts; philosophy, the idealogical belief in Wall Street, Wall streeters running the government; the banks and insurance companies; housing markets, Lehman Brothers, crash, CRASH, What the The Dark Tower actually is; SHUFFLE; Prostitution; gambling, corruption and drugs, overseas situations, perspectives and graphs, graphs, figures, formulas, employment, unemployment….the film is just vast and extremely complicated in what it covers.

Now before I blabber on about how complicated the movie is - I would like to note another issue I had with the film: and it is just a problem that affects any documentary film: BIAS:

The film ‘Inside Job’ is not afraid of what it is: which is an extremely leftist piece of propaganda. Odd’s are your opinion of the people portrayed in the movie will be negative if you are actively seeking the picture out - and it is edited together to capitalize on this. It is all so subjectively handled. Ferguson and the rest of the film-makers don’t just lay out the facts; they interject their own voice, or Matt Damon’s narration; we are constantly getting a skewed look at events: Interviewees are rudely cut off and there are multiple sequences where suspicious editing is used. The whole situation ends up feeling very “Michael Moore” particularly in certain sections -especially those done for comedy; like a sequence where a bunch of bankers have to state their case in-front of a series of judges. The data in this movie feels skewed.

But like Michael Moore’s film-making it is undeniably effective and entertaining. It is just important to remember that if you are going start fighting for the cause of the movie; then do some research of your own before you start calling for tighter Gun laws…er…I mean Banking…wait… What do they want me to do about Wall Street again? Uh never mind…

But yeah I can’t help but think a lot of the “moviemaking” was done on purpose to make the film somewhat entertaining: Matt Damon is the narrator and does an okay job; it is just everything that he says is incredibly cheesy and hyperbolic (I know he didn’t write it) it is the ‘shouting for change’ type of rhetoric. Melodramatic sort of thing.

The big thing that felt “movie-like” is that Ferguson openly treats his interviewees like absolute SH*T. He yells at them, interrupts them, flat our abuses them, tells them they are wrong, it is crazy how in-your-face he is; for example many of the interviews are shut down because he yells at his subject - this makes for some uncomfortable viewing: a large part of ‘Inside Job’ is needlessly mean spirited; and while it may turn some off - I found it largely entertaining - I just thought this was a section of the movie that some could view as a negative so it was worth discussing.

This leads to what I think the film’s actual problem is: it is just massively complicated: In 109 minutes ALOT of ground is covered: For me: someone who was not knowledgeable about American Finance - I became lost in many places. It is difficult to mentally juggle hundreds of cast members, hundreds of facts and figures and graphs and topics -especially when you are there watching it in a cinema.It is hard enough to remember 3 peoples names - let alone one hundred..But hey; It wasn’t like I could just pause and rewind the film; if you miss or don’t understand something you can’t just go back.  this is perhaps an unfair criticism as maybe I am just too stupid for the movie; and that someone with a major background in economics might find it base - I guess its a question of audience?

Is ‘Inside Job’ a movie only for the financial crowd? I believe that the answer is a firm “no” - its a movie that is meant to educate and enlighten. And it does a fairly good job of that - I just can’t help but feel that this movie would have worked much better as a television mini-series or something like that - where it had the luxury of time.

I guess ‘Inside Job’ is a movie that would work much better on television; where it can be digested easier; but that is not to say it isn’t worth a watch at the cinema. It definitely is; my only note of warning is you should only go and see the movie if you are really interested in the subject matter; it is not a film that will be enjoyed by everyone - so don’t drag along people just for the sake of it. For the non-caring this movie will be torture.

But if you are interested; then go check it out; it’ll probably be worth your time and money. There are only so few times you wish that a documentary film was longer and more in-depth; and I guess that’s the greatest compliment I can give ‘Inside Job’.

7 out of 10.

Movie trailer: