movie film review | chris tookey
 
     
     
 

Inside Job

 (12A)
© Sony Pictures Classics - all rights reserved
     
  Inside Job Review
Tookey's Rating
9 /10
 
Average Rating
8.07 /10
 
Starring
Matt Damon (Narration),
 

Directed by: Charles Ferguson
Written by: Charles Ferguson

 
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Released: 2010
   
Genre: DOCUMENTARY
   
Origin: US
   
Colour: C
   
Length: 109
 
 


 
The shocking truth about the economic crisis.
Reviewed by Chris Tookey



Inside Job is an exceptionally intelligent and perceptive documentary by IT entrepreneur- turned-film-maker Charles Ferguson (pictured) about the ongoing global economic crisis. It depicts with admirable clarity the fraudulence and insanity of the boom that led to bust.

If you have ever wanted to understand “derivatives”, “hedge funds” and “collateralized debt obligation”, this is the movie for you. It is also refreshingly even-handed politically, showing that foolish deregulation and financial irresponsibility have been endemic in governments of the Left as well as Right.

It names and shames, with commendable candour and no little black humour, many of the bankers, economists and academics who contributed to the economic ruin of far too many innocent people.

Though the film is principally concerned with America, there is an impressively international array of witnesses, many of them clearly unused to being interrogated and some of whom do a spectacular job of self-incrimination.

I particularly treasured the self-immolation of Glenn Hubbard, chief economic advisor during the last Bush administration, and the hapless floundering of economist Frederic Mishkin, when called upon to justify his gung-ho report in praise of Iceland’s financial sector, which he called Financial Stability in Iceland, but which now appears on his CV retitled Financial Instability in Iceland.

In view of the blatantly unethical greed and irresponsibility involved at the top of some of the financial institutions, Ferguson shows how astonishingly few of those responsible have gone to prison for fraud, while some of those most negligent and misguided are continuing to hold important positions even under Barack Obama.

This is a film that will leave anyone who sees it better informed and, quite rightly, angrier. It is a must-see, and one of the outstanding journalistic achievements of the last decade.


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