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Too Big to Fail (film)
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Wikipedia article
'Too Big to Fail' is an American biographical drama television film first broadcast on HBO on May 23, 2011 based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's non-fiction book 'Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial Systemand Themselves' (2009). The film was directed by Curtis Hanson. It received 11 nominations at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards; Paul Giamatti's portrayal of Ben Bernanke earned him the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie at the 18th Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Plot summary
'Too Big to Fail' chronicles the 2008 financial meltdown, focusing on the actions of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (William Hurt) and Ben Bernanke (Paul Giamatti), Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, to contain the problems during the period of August 2008 to October 13, 2008. The film starts with clips of news reports about the mortgage industry crisis and the forced sale of the troubled Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase, with Fed guarantees.
With Bear Stearns out of the picture, short sellers have turned their attention on Lehman Brothers. In need of capital, CEO Dick Fuld (James Woods) reluctantly fires COO Joe Gregory and CFO Erin Callan, naming Bart McDade as the new president and COO. McDade begins to successfully negotiate a deal with Korean investors, hinging on the condition that Lehman's toxic real estate is excluded. The deal falls through, however, when Fuld's pride gets the best of him and he tries to coerce the Koreans into accepting the real estate assets.
Paulson is adamant that the government will not subsidize any more acquisitions, but it becomes clear the most promising buyer for Lehman, Bank of America, is uninterested without Fed involvement. Paulson and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Timothy Geithner (Billy Crudup) gather the leaders of the biggest banks, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (Evan Handler), JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (Bill Pullman), and Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack (Tony Shalhoub), to convince them to underwrite the deal themselves. During a break in negotiations, another threatened firm, Merrill Lynch, approaches Bank of America to buy them instead, which Paulson tacitly okays. With Bank of America purchasing Merrill Lynch, the only other buyer is British firm Barclays, but their involvement is blocked by British banking regulators. Lehman collapses and is forced into bankruptcy. Meanwhile, insurance firm AIG also begins to fail.
Lehman's collapse affects the entire financial market, and the stock market goes into freefall. Blankfein, Mack, and General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt inform Paulson they are unable to do business, and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde warns him that he must not allow AIG to fail, as the crisis is affecting Europe as well. Unlike Lehman, the Treasury rescues AIG with an $85 billion loan.
Bernanke argues that the Congress must pass legislation to authorize any continued intervention by the Fed or the Treasury. With the availability of credit drying up, Paulson's plan is to buy the toxic assets from the banks to take the risk off their books and increase their cash reserves. Bernanke and Paulson lobby Congress, with Bernanke emphasizing the potential of fallout worse than the Great Depression if they fail to act. The committee of representatives appear close to agreeing, when U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain, with great fanfare, announces that he is suspending his campaign and returning to Washington to work on the legislation, polarizing the Republicans and Democrats on the issue. Paulson has to threaten McCain not to interfere and beg the Democrats, led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, not to back away from the negotiations. After a wave of panic and personal haranguing from President George W. Bush, the legislation passes on a second attempt and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is created.
Paulson's team realizes that buying toxic assets will take too long, leaving direct capital injections to the banks as their only option to use TARP to get credit flowing again. Along with FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, Paulson informs the banks that they will receive mandatory capital injections. The banks eventually agree, but Paulson's staff laments that the parties who caused the crisis are being allowed to dictate the terms of how they should use the billions with which they are being bailed out. In private conference, Bernanke and Paulson lament that, although the intent of TARP is for the banks to use the loan money to restore credit for ordinary consumers, the legislation stops short of forcing them to do so.
An epilogue notes that the banks did not, in fact, use the loan money as intended, but instead returned it at their earliest opportunity, and the stock market still crashed and was followed by a rash of home foreclosures. Nevertheless, bank mergers continued in the wake of the crisis, and now only ten financial institutions hold 77% of all U.S. banking assets and have been declared too big to fail.
Cast
The cast includes the following:
* William Hurt as Henry Paulson (U.S. Treasury Secretary and former Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs)
* Edward Asner as Warren Buffett (Primary shareholder, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway)
* Billy Crudup as Timothy Geithner (President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
* Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Federal Reserve)
* Topher Grace as Jim Wilkinson (Chief of Staff, U.S. Treasury Department)
* Matthew Modine as John Thain (Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch)
* Cynthia Nixon as Michele Davis (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Relations and Director of Policy Planning)
* Michael O'Keefe as Chris Flowers (Chairman and CEO, J.C. Flowers & Co.)
* Bill Pullman as Jamie Dimon (Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase)
* Tony Shalhoub as John Mack (Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley)
* James Woods as Dick Fuld (Chairman and CEO, Lehman Brothers)
* Ayad Akhtar as Neel Kashkari (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics and Development)
* Kathy Baker as Wendy Paulson (Wife of Henry Paulson)
* Amy Carlson as Erin Callan (CFO, Lehman Brothers)
* Evan Handler as Lloyd Blankfein (Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs)
* John Heard as Joe Gregory (President and COO, Lehman Brothers)
* Dan Hedaya as Rep. Barney Frank (Chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee (D-MA))
* Peter Hermann as Christopher Cox (Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
* Chance Kelly as Bart McDade (President and COO, Lehman Brothers)
* Tom Mason as Bob Willumstad (Chairman and CEO, AIG)
* Ajay Mehta as Vikram Pandit (CEO, Citigroup)
* Tom Tammi as Jeffrey Immelt (CEO, General Electric)
* Laila Robins as Christine Lagarde (French Finance Minister)
* Victor Slezak as Greg Curl (Director of Planning, Bank of America)
* Joey Slotnick as Dan Jester (Retired Goldman Sachs banker and newly appointed Paulson Advisor)
* Casey Biggs as Richard Kovacevich (Chairman, Wells Fargo & Company)
* Steve Tom as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)
* Bud Jones as Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
* Jonathan Freeman as Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)
* Linda Glick as Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House of Representatives (D-CA))
* Patricia Randell as Sheila Bair (Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)
* George Taylor as Sir Callum McCarthy (Chairman of the Financial Services Authority)
Reception
Critical reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 74%, based on 27 reviews, and an average rating of 6/10. On Metacritic, the movie received a weighted average score of 67/100 from 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".'The A.V. Club' gave the film a B rating.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable"|-
! Year
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| rowspan="23"|
| Artios Awards
| Outstanding Achievement in Casting Television Movie/Mini Series
| Alexa L. Fogel and Christine Kromer
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Hollywood Post Alliance Awards
| Outstanding Color Grading Television
| Kevin O'Connor
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| Outstanding Sound Television
| Michael Kirchberger, Chris Jenkins, and Bob Beemer
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Online Film & Television Association Awards
| Best Actor in a Motion Picture or Miniseries
| William Hurt
|
| align="center" rowspan="5"|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture or Miniseries
| Paul Giamatti
|
|-
| Best Direction of a Motion Picture or Miniseries
| Curtis Hanson
|
|-
| Best Writing of a Motion Picture or Miniseries
| Peter Gould
|
|-
| colspan="2"| Best Ensemble in a Motion Picture or Miniseries
|
|-
| rowspan="6"| Primetime Emmy Awards
| Outstanding Miniseries or Movie
| Curtis Hanson, Paula Weinstein, Jeffrey Levine,
Carol Fenelon, and Ezra Swerdlow
|
| align="center" rowspan="11"|
|-
| Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
| William Hurt
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
| Paul Giamatti
|
|-
| James Woods
|
|-
| Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special
| Curtis Hanson
|
|-
| Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special
| Peter Gould
|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards
| Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special
| | Alexa L. Fogel and Christine Kromer
|
|-
| Outstanding Cinematography for a Miniseries or Movie
| Kramer Morgenthau
|
|-
| Outstanding Main Title Design
| Michael Riley, Bob Swensen, Adam Bluming, and Cory Shaw
|
|-
| Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Miniseries or a Movie
| Barbara Tulliver and Plummy Tucker
|
|-
| Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or a Movie
| Jimmy Sabat, Chris Jenkins, and Bob Beemer
|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Satellite Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Actor in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television
| William Hurt
|
|-
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television
| James Woods
|
|-
| Television Critics Association Awards
| colspan="2"| Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="10"|
| Art Directors Guild Awards
| Excellence in Production Design Award Television Movie or Mini-Series
| Bob Shaw, Miguel Lpez-Castillo, Katya Blumenberg,
Larry M. Gruber, Holly Watson, Peter Hackman,
and Carol Silverman
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Cinema Audio Society Awards
| Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Movies and Mini-Series
| James Sabat, Chris Jenkins, Bob Beemer, and Chris Fogel
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Golden Globe Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Miniseries or Television Film
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| Best Actor Miniseries or Television Film
| William Hurt
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor Series, Miniseries or Television Film
| Paul Giamatti
|
|-
| Guild of Music Supervisors Awards
| Best Music Supervision for Television Long Form and Movie
| Evyen Klean
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Producers Guild of America Awards
| David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Long-Form Television
| Carol Fenelon, Jeffrey Levine, and Paula Weinstein
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Screen Actors Guild Awards
| rowspan="2"| Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
| Paul Giamatti
|
| align="center" rowspan="2"|
|-
| James Woods
|
|-
| Writers Guild of America Awards
| Long Form Adapted
| Peter Gould Based on the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin
|
| align="center"|
|}
Home media
The DVD was released on June 12, 2012.
See also
* 'The Big Short'
* 'Margin Call'
* 'The Last Days of Lehman Brothers'
* 'Glengarry Glen Ross'
* 'The Hummingbird Project'
* 'Better Call Saul', a TV series written by Peter Gould with a significant banking subplot
Notes
References
Buy Too Big to Fail (film) now from Amazon
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