Australian Penthouse

DIRECTOR: Charles H. Ferguson
STARS: Matt Damon, Nouriel Roubini, Barney Frank, George Soros, Eliot Spitzer, Charles R. Morris

For those who occasionally feel as if the hardship they’re enduring didn’t come cheap, Inside Job will be a furious epiphany. This is a documentary about the handful of people who brought ruin and tragedy to the global economy, circa 2008. It’s a documentary about the men and women who got paid a lot of money to fuck the rest of us around.

Here’s the story: The guys on Wall Street figured out how to make themselves some big cash out of other people’s debt. Experts told those guys they were engaging in potentially catastrophic behaviour for massive personal gain. Strangely, the behaviour continued, and the worst happened. Banks collapsed, Governments were brought in and people around the world started losing their jobs—except the guys on Wall Street. They kept their money and walked away from the mess unscathed. Some of them even ended up in the employ of the American Government. And all of them, to this day, maintain their position against the regulatory reforms that would have prevented the catastrophe from happening in the first place.

The summary is perplexing, but to see the film—to be faced with Wall Street’s smug grin and piss weak attempt to talk around the issue—is to experience true wrath. The whole thing is unimaginably offensive, because it is clear that these people—this culture—can dabble in blatant and destructive opportunism and self-service, and expect absolutely no repercussion. The film paints America’s finance industry as alternately criminal and amoral, and yet its poster children are scattered throughout the US’ political powerhouses.

The bottom line is that Inside Job is not just worthwhile viewing, it is vital. It is necessary for all of us to understand who did what, and to see the etymology of our global climate and its recent trials. See the movie, feel the burn, make noise where you can.

Inside Job hits cinemas nationally on February 17.

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