Too Big to Fail (film)

Too Big to Fail
Based on Too Big to Fail
Written by Peter Gould
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Starring William Hurt
Edward Asner
Billy Crudup
Paul Giamatti
Topher Grace
Cynthia Nixon
Bill Pullman
Tony Shalhoub
James Woods
Theme music composer Marcelo Zarvos
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
Production
Producer(s) Ezra Swerdlow
Cinematography Kramer Morgenthau
Editor(s)

Barbara Tulliver

Plummy Tucker
Running time 98 minutes
Production company(s) Deuce Three Productions
Release
Original network HBO Films
Original release
  • May 23, 2011 (2011-05-23)

Too Big to Fail is an American television drama 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 System—and 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) to contain the problems during the period of August 2008 to October 13, 2008. Dick Fuld (James Woods), CEO of Lehman Brothers, is seeking external investment, but investors are wary as Lehman is seriously exposed to toxic housing assets and the Treasury is ideologically opposed to offering any sort of bailout as it did for Bear Stearns.

Paulson attempts to arrange a private solution to the Lehman problem, and both Bank of America and Barclays express interest in Lehman's good assets. Bank of America instead chooses to purchase Merrill Lynch. Barclays is prepared to accept the terms of the merger, but British banking regulators refuse to approve the deal. Paulson directs Fuld to declare bankruptcy before the market opens.

The initial reaction on Wall Street is favorable, as is the political reaction. However, Paulson quickly learns that Lehman's counterparty risk is impacting the entire financial market, and that the stock market is in freefall. Paulson receives a call from Jeffrey Immelt (Tom Tammi) of General Electric, who tells him that GE is unable to finance its daily operations. Paulson realizes the crisis has spread to Main Street.

Another crisis arises as multinational insurance corporation AIG begins to collapse. Paulson's team realizes that if AIG is allowed to fail, its insurance portfolio will default and the entire financial industry will suffer catastrophic losses. The Treasury takes over AIG. Ben Bernanke (Paul Giamatti), Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, argues that the status quo is unsustainable and 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 of their books and to increase their available cash reserves. Direct capital injection is considered and rejected. Timothy Geithner (Billy Crudup), President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, realizes that the market cannot wait for Congressional action. He attempts to arrange mergers between consumer banks and investment banks in order to allow the investment banks access to the Federal Reserve's discount window, but this proves untenable. Bernanke and Paulson lobby Congress, with Bernanke emphasizing that a lack of credit helped make the Wall Street Crash of 1929 into the Great Depression, and that if Congress fails to act, the fallout this time will be far worse.

The legislation looks likely to pass, but is thrown into chaos when Senator John McCain suspends his campaign for president to join the negotiations. Paulson begs Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi not to back away from the negotiations, but too many Republicans vote "no", causing an immediate drop in the Dow of 600 points. After a wave of panic and personal haranguing from President George W. Bush, the legislation passes on a second attempt, and the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is signed into law.

Paulson decides that the only way to get credit flowing again is direct capital injections. With the help of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair Sheila Bair and the threat of an FDIC audit, Paulson informs the participating banks that they will be receiving mandatory capital injections and they must use this money to get credit moving again. The banks agree, but Paulson balks at putting additional restrictions on how the funds are to be used. Paulson's Treasury deputy for public affairs (Cynthia Nixon) laments that the parties who caused the crisis are being allowed to dictate the terms. Bernanke states that he hopes the banks will use the funds as intended.

An epilogue reveals that although markets did stabilize and the banks repaid their Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, credit standards continued to tighten resulting in rising unemployment and foreclosures. As bank mergers continued in the wake of the crisis, these banks became even larger and, at the time of the film, 10 financial institutions held 77% of all U.S. banking assets and have been declared too big to fail.

Cast

The cast includes the following:[1]

Critical reception

The A.V. Club gave the film a B rating.[2] The movie received generally favorable reviews from Metacritic, with the show receiving an aggregate score of 67/100 from 17 reviews.[3]

Awards

2011 Emmy Awards

2012 Golden Globe Awards

2012 Screen Actors Guild Awards

2012 Writers Guild of America Awards

Home media

The DVD was released on June 12, 2012.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "HBO: Too Big to Fail: Cast & Crew". HBO. Retrieved 2012-01-31.
  2. ↑ "Too Big To Fail". The A.V. Club.
  3. ↑ "Too Big To Fail". Metacritic.
  4. ↑ "Too Big to Fail – CompleteSeasonDVDs.com". Retrieved 28 June 2012.
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