Film Review: Inside Job

Article published: Tuesday, March 8th 2011

Winner of the best documentary Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards, Inside Job examines the causes of the recent financial crisis. But does it live up to expectations? Ben Lear reviews.

The financial crisis of 2008 will stand out as one of the key events of the past few decades. Its effects are still being felt in the form of government cuts and will continue to be felt in the future. Inside Job, directed by Chad Ferguson, sets out to explore the causes of this financial crash. Yet the narrative offered is simplistic and very familiar.

One hour and forty eight minutes in length, Inside Job has the space both to build up a detailed chronology of events which led up to the crisis and to explore its immediate aftermath. The film was released two years after the crash, giving Chad Ferguson the time to interview a host of regulators, academics and other experts; even ‘philanthro-capitalist’ George Soros makes an appearance to condemn unregulated markets. Half of those interviewed are quick to condemn the US financial sector. Yet interviews with ‘those on the inside’, reveal little, instead turning into struggles to produce ‘damning’ pauses or noises of confusion that might reveal the interviewee’s guilt.

The film’s main argument is a routine one. It contends that the greed of the US financial sector, coupled with lax regulation and the support of highly remunerated academics, is to blame for the crisis in which trillions of dollars was wiped off the global economy and millions of people lost homes and jobs. Taking an almost voyeuristic delight in outlining the vices of financial workers, the film indulges in a long discussion on the institutional use of drugs and prostitutes as though this were unusual for those working in large, successful companies or institutions. It implies that these adrenalin-fueled bankers are greedy for cash due to mere personal inclination, rather than the need to create profit for shareholders.

Although a slight nod is given to other more long term factors, these aren’t integrated into the film’s argument. The narrative focuses on the US economy and financial sector, holding up Europe as an example of fiscal stewardship. Indeed the policy suggestions that Matt Damon, the big-budget narrator, puts forward at the end of the film reflect its narrow analysis. Replacing key state advisers and imposing stricter financial regulation alone will not alleviate this global economic crisis and nor could it have averted it.

The film’s main flaw is its economic analysis. While it might be tempting, and morally satisfying, to condemn the financial sector in the strongest possible words, this approach ignores the bigger picture. By ignoring broader economic trends and focusing on ‘bashing the bankers’, a commonplace tendency here in the UK with protests from the G20 in London to UK Uncut, the film’s policy-based argument leaves larger questions of social justice lurking like the proverbial elephant in the room.

Yet film goers are certainly interested in the film’s subject matter. Inside Job has already taken four million dollars at the US box office and it scooped the Oscar for best documentary at the recent Academy Awards. After all, we are all being affected by the ‘solutions’ offered by governments across the world. Ultimately Inside Job is a slick, well filmed documentary. Yet it has an unsurprising and flawed argument at its core.

Ben Lear

Inside Job was running at the Cornerhouse in March.

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Comments

1. The criticisms outlined in the review highlight a flaw in many ‘critical’ political documentaries: the narrative often becomes highly personalised to one or a class of protagonistss and in doing so reverts to a series of myths and symbols which obscure the social nature and functioning of capitalism. So the question is: how do we create politically critical documentaries that offer a broader social critique and challenge economic assumptions without being too academic or Marxian in tone?

   Comment by Withingtonian on March 11, 2011 at 1:47 pm

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