Inside Job: A Quick Review

Does everyone remember how a while back the entire U.S. economy collapsed and lots of people lost all their money and even more lost their jobs? I believe they called it The Great Depression. So what do they call 2008? The Greater Depression? The Great Depression strikes back? Both depressions suck on a galactic scale but at least only one caused the deaths of thousands of people right? Yeah, but in that one they didn't pay the men responsible billions of dollars to do what they've been doing all along. If moral outrage isn't your thing, I wouldn't see this movie. If you hate wall street and the corrupt bankers who control the flow of cash, I would suggest ordering the special edition of Inside Job, it comes with a stimulus package signed by the president himself.

If you haven't guessed by now, Inside Job is about the 2008 financial collapse of just about every major banking institution in the United States. And of course anything that affects the U.S. affects the rest of the world because we are awesome and all that. The news around the time was kind of vague if I recall correctly; I remember that there was a housing bubble and it crashed because people couldn't pay what they owed on houses. Of course the bankers weren't supposed to be giving them loans in the first place because they weren't properly qualified. This caused the banks to fail because they weren't collecting any money from all the bankrupt house owners and they ran crying to the government complaining about how big they were and if they fail America will fail and boo hoo. So the government gave them so much money it hurts my brain to think about it. But then we discovered that the same banks give out bonuses like its candy to the same people who actually caused the housing bubble and then meltdown. All while taking everyone's tax money and paying almost no taxes themselves.

Literally the scariest movie I have ever seen. It really is unbelievable how much they got away with. Matt Damon narrates a slew of interviews between the director and wall street executives who fumble with answers and basically show how much of a douchebag they really are. And then we get to watch congress completely foul up an investigation into the biggest crime of the century. I almost punched my TV in annoyance. Don't worry, there's lots of fun infographics that show how they took your money and spent it on hookers, crack and a new mansion.

Like any great documentary, Inside Job provides a solution: prosecution. We can't get the money back but we can send the bastards to jail. I know of one big recent indictment of an executive but there are many more who blatantly disregarded any and all laws that would send normal men to jail. A well-deserved best documentary Oscar, Inside Job is a movie you won't forget. It's also my first 4 out of 4 stars, but I don't really count that since it's a documentary and not an entertainment flick. Maybe someday some movie will impress me enough to win that coveted award.

4 out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell