Inside Job - Absorbing documentary on causes of 2008 global financial crisis
Matt Damon narrates film suggesting crash was not unavoidable
(12A) 108min
The causes of the global financial crisis of 2008, which has been the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s, are rigorously explored in this absorbing documentary from American filmmaker Charles Ferguson. That we are continuing to suffer globally from the economic consequences of these events, whether in lost jobs, public service spending cuts, or decimated pension funds, gives this film a powerful urgency. Narrated by Matt Damon, the elegantly shot documentary puts the case forward that the crash was in no way an unavoidable accident. Tracing the history of the American finance industry over some three decades, during which it was massively deregulated by both Republican and Democrat governments, Ferguson argues that what happened was criminal fraud on a catastrophic scale and asks why there have been no prosecutions of those responsible.
Combining archival footage and probing interviews with financiers, Ivy League academics (whose conflicts of interest are laid bare), lawyers and politicians, Ferguson’s approach is the antithesis of Michael Moore’s grandstanding. Nor does he see President Obama as a saviour for his country’s dysfunctional financial system, pointing out that several of the president’s key economic appointments are individuals who were executives in the very companies whose recklessness triggered the crisis.
Selected release from Fri 18 Feb.