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<em>Too Big To Fail</em>: Will Paul Giamatti, Billy Crudup Make Credit Default Swaps Sexy?
By
Jen Chung
Published May 23, 2011
Modified May 23, 2011
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By
Jen Chung
Published May 23, 2011
Modified May 23, 2011
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Tonight, HBO will air its adaptation of NY Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin's portrait of the financial crisis, Too Big To Fail. It features a wide array of stars playing real life figures, including William Hurt as former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Billy Crudup as former NY Federal Reserve head (and current Treasury Secretary) Timothy Geithner, Paul Giamatti as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Ed Asner as Warren Buffett, Evan Handler (yes, Harry Goldenblatt from Sex and the City) as Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein and Tony Shalhoub as Morgan Stanley's John Mack. However, if the movie were to have a romantic lead, it might be Bill Pullman, who plays JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon.
Bloomberg View's Michael Kinsley reviews the film in the NY Times, "Bill Pullman is in a lot of movies and rarely seems to get the girl. Here, though, playing the suave Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, he is the closest thing to a romantic lead in a story with virtually no women. He doesn’t get the girl, because there is no girl to get. But even before the movie starts, he gets the securities firm Bear Stearns, with a big government subsidy, and by movie’s end he is being begged to accept more taxpayer money to take over a bank or two." Kinsley also notes, "I’ve never come closer than the two minutes after watching “Too Big to Fail” to understanding what a “credit default swap” is (except possibly for an hour or so after reading Michael Lewis’s “Big Short”)."
The Hollywood Reporter says, "William Hurt turns in powerful performance as U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in a mesmerizing movie from HBO on the near-economic implosion of 2008 that everyone should watch." The LA Times weighs in, "Structurally, it is a little like an episode of "House," a series of surgeries and injections requiring further surgeries and injections but without the tidy fourth-act cure, and a little like a disaster movie, where the disaster is still rumbling on at the movie's end, just not as awfully as it might have, and a little like a samurai movie, where the soldiers carry cellphones instead of swords, minus the action." Hitfix's Alan Sepinwall writes, ""Too Big to Fail" the movie, like "Too Big to Fail" the book, takes a topic that could have felt like homework and turns it into effective entertainment - even if that entertainment might teach you something along the way."
As for Sorkin, he told Daily Intel that he thought the filmmakers—who include director Curtis Hanson—"did a great job."
Tagged
ben bernanke
billy crudup
credit default swap
financial crisis
gallery
henry paulson
lloyd blankfein
paul giamatti
timothy geithner
too big to fail
william hurt
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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