I was in my relative infancy when this shitstorm happened and I still struggle putting it together in 2021. In essence, a lot of greedy folk got very greedy and fucked the whole economic foundations of the world, and governments in almost every country – mostly your alleged left-wing or centre parties trying to get big business on their sides – let it happen.
The setting is clearly Lehman Brothers but I think it’s a bit too kind on them as there are folk in this, boardroom members, with consciences, albeit they still tow the line. It’s riveting drama, a movie with such tense exchanges they are gripping even if you don’t understand what the characters are referring to. You’d need a glossary at times if it weren’t for the Zachary Quinto character who thankfully acts as a conduit to the financial layman amongst us.
There are few histrionics, mainly just rational, coldly logical decisions based on the almighty $ and it’s chilling. You get the scene with the cleaner in the lift oblivious to how the blokes in the foreground are about to crash the system and somewhere down the line she is going to get shafted, i.e., end up paying for it, yet she did her job. It’s never polemical in the Oliver Stone sense, and it isn’t a stylistically razzmatazz event. And it’s Kevin Spacey’s last great film role. He is pure Spacey here and I’m not going to get into the legal stuff because I … will, like all filmgoers, never know the facts. But it’s a shame he departed.
Trying to relate this to a reality I can understand: this Irishman living in the States and his rant for the ages.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 