{"id":768,"date":"2011-02-17T15:08:34","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T15:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/?p=768"},"modified":"2011-02-17T15:14:41","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T15:14:41","slug":"inside-job-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/documentary\/inside-job-4\/","title":{"rendered":"LFF: Inside Job – 4*"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With recent news of 200 RBS bankers possibly getting \u00a31 million pound bonuses each, surely the last thing you\u2019d want to see is a film about these smug fat cats and the global financial meltdown they helped cause. There will be popcorn directed at the screens for sure. But like a taunt fictional thriller \u2013 and Hollywood couldn\u2019t have made this stuff up, if it hadn\u2019t been real, Charles Ferguson<\/a>‘s documentary, Inside Job<\/a><\/em>, develops into engaging and probing car-crash viewing because it places those responsible on camera, so we see their mug shots, and watch them squirm for our pleasure, much like a public execution. Let\u2019s face it; it\u2019s the closest we will get to one. Sadly, the big fish that need frying escape Ferguson’s net, for example, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan and former US Treasury Secretary Paulson who declined to be interviewed, protected by the fortress institutions they helped build, no doubt.<\/p>\n

The dramatic start of Iceland being the first domino to fall sets the scene in a film divided into five parts, each one steadily mounting the tension. Like Al Gore<\/a>\u2019s 2006 environmental film, An Inconvenient Truth<\/em><\/a>, Inside Job breaks down the crisis into layman\u2019s terms for the \u2018hard-of-economics-hearing\u2019 \u2013\u00a0this reviewer included. If you’ve ever wondered\/switched off to what a subprime loan, derivative or AAA rating is, the simple graphics combined with file footage and on-camera explanation actually make for an exhilarating lesson, like you\u2019re reliving the meltdown once more. It\u2019s emotively edited, including some victims\u2019 stories, predominantly US-slanted, and narrated in an incriminating manner by actor Matt Damon<\/a>, but it gets the message across.<\/p>\n

As well as revelations of \u2018anti-family\u2019, after-hours \u2018entertainment\u2019 (basically, hookers and coke) that sounds like a prerequisite for any key moneyman in the city, the sheer extent of their inconceivable markets gambling hits home. As Citigroup\u2019s Chief Economist Willem Buiter<\/a> states, banking became a \u2018p***ing contest\u2019 \u2013\u00a0and it probably still is. There is a growing feeling of resentment as you watch, followed by despair, as each successive US President tries to curb the borrowing practices and regulate the money giants, but with sinister consequences. If the financial heavyweight isn\u2019t part of the government, they control the bank that funds it \u2013\u00a0and move between the two, effortlessly. Ferguson and his willing interviewees suggest one of the world\u2019s most powerful leaders is merely the bankers\u2019 puppet.<\/p>\n

There is some \u2018light relief\u2019, though, when the film-maker goes after former key financial insiders who often, disturbingly, sit on the boards of the US\u2019s top universities, and preach the \u2018bad practice\u2019 of deregulation stunting growth to the next generation, whilst taking extortionate fees from whoever pays top dollar. There is a priceless and gleeful moment, when former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Frederic Mishkin, who is also a full professor at Columbia Business School since 1983, inarticulately claims there has been a \u2018typo\u2019 in his original CV, after one of his papers listed, written for the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce, mysteriously changes title from \u2018Financial Stability in Iceland\u2019 to \u2018Financial Instability in Iceland\u2019. It\u2019s all very juvenile but somewhat satisfying to see these financial ‘gurus’ getting a little hot under the collar.<\/p>\n

What sounds like a rather dry box office offering actually turns out to be a frightening, hilarious and ultimately rousing experience – exactly what a good investigative documentary about the world’s biggest account of (ongoing) White Collar crime should be. At the same time, Inside Job<\/em> is guilty of fanning the flames of controversy for entertainment\u2019s sake, being Right-Wing-slanted, and outrageously depicting the UK\u2019s involvement as almost squeaky-clean. However, each US President gets a personal dig, including Obama, and as an informative analysis for the average Joe on the global financial collapse, Inside Job ultimately leaves you exacerbated at how blurred politics and banking are. As quoted in the film: \u201cIt\u2019s a Wall Street Government\u201d.<\/p>\n

4\/5 stars<\/strong><\/p>\n

By @FilmGazer<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With recent news of 200 RBS bankers possibly getting \u00a31 million pound bonuses each, surely the last thing you\u2019d want to see is a film about these smug fat cats and the global financial meltdown they helped cause. There will be popcorn directed at the screens for sure. But like a taunt fictional thriller \u2013 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “LFF: Inside Job – 4*”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[309,134],"tags":[742,743,740,746,741,744,745],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bfi-lff-2010","category-documentary","tag-al-gore","tag-an-inconvenient-truth","tag-charles-ferguson","tag-frederic-mishkin","tag-inside-job","tag-matt-damon","tag-willem-buiter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":772,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions\/772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}