Too Big to Fail (film)


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 . 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 and Ben Bernanke, 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 reluctantly fires COO Joe Gregory and CFO Erin Callan, naming Bart McDade as the new President and COO. McDade negotiates a deal with Korean investors, but the deal falls through when Fuld interrupts the negotiations and tries to convince the Koreans that they are undervaluing the toxic 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 gather the leaders of the biggest banks, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, and Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, 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. 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. Paulson threatens U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain not to interfere and begs 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 is created.
Paulson's team realizes that buying toxic assets will take too long, leaving direct capital injects into 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. An epilogue notes that bank mergers continued in the wake of the crisis, and that 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:
The DVD was released on June 12, 2012.

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

2011 Emmy Awards
2012 Golden Globe Awards
2012 Screen Actors Guild Awards
2012 Writers Guild of America Awards