Too Big to Fail (film)

Too Big to Fail is a 2011 American biographical drama television film directed by Curtis Hanson and written by Peter Gould, based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's 2009 non-fiction book Too Big to Fail. The film aired on HBO on May 23, 2011. 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
In 2008, news channels are full of reports about the mortgage industry crisis and the forced sale of troubled investment bank, Bear Stearns, to commercial banking giant JPMorgan Chase, with Federal guarantees. With Bear Stearns out of the picture, short sellers turn their attention on another investment bank, Lehman Brothers.

With their share price falling rapidly, Lehman Brothers tries to negotiate a deal with Korean investors. The deal hinges on the condition that Lehman's toxic real estate is excluded, but falls through when CEO Dick Fuld insists the Koreans reconsider accepting the real estate assets. The most promising US-based buyer for Lehman, Bank of America, is uninterested without Fed involvement, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is adamant that the government will not subsidize any more acquisitions.

To resolve the situation, Paulson and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner, gather the leaders of the biggest US banks over a weekend, trying to coerce them to underwrite the deal. The bank leaders seem to reach an agreement, but Bank of America backs out, choosing instead to buy another threatened firm and Lehman's rival, Merrill Lynch. Paulson tries to negotiate for Lehman with British bank Barclays, but their involvement is blocked by British banking regulators. With no buyers remaining, Lehman is forced into bankruptcy.

Lehman's collapse affects the entire financial system. Paulson tries to reassure news media of the soundness of the decision to let Lehman fail, but the stock market goes into freefall. Meanwhile, insurance firm AIG also begins to fail. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde warns Paulson that he must not allow AIG to fail, as the crisis is affecting Europe as well. Unlike Lehman, the Treasury rescues AIG with an $85 billion loan, deeming it “too big to [let] fail”.

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, argues that 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. The committee of representatives appear close to agreeing, when U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain, with great fanfare, announces that he is suspending his campaign and returning to Washington to work on the legislation.

Paulson has to threaten McCain not to interfere, and beg the Democrats 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 (TARP) is created. Paulson's team realizes that buying toxic assets will take too long, leaving direct capital injections to 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 agree to the loans, but TARP legislation stops short of forcing them to use the money to restore credit for ordinary consumers.

The stock market continues falling until 2009 when it finally stabilizes, signaling the end of the crisis. An epilogue notes that the banks made little use of the loan money to ease credit conditions as intended, while Wall Street compensation continued to rise, reaching $135 Billion by 2010.

Cast
The cast includes the following:


 * William Hurt as Henry Paulson (U.S. Treasury Secretary and former Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs)
 * Edward Asner as Warren Buffett (Primary shareholder, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway)
 * Billy Crudup as Timothy Geithner (President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
 * Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke (Chair of the Federal Reserve)
 * Topher Grace as Jim Wilkinson (Chief of Staff, U.S. Treasury Department)
 * Matthew Modine as John Thain (Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch)
 * Cynthia Nixon as Michele Davis (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Relations and Director of Policy Planning)
 * Michael O'Keefe as Chris Flowers (Chairman and CEO, J.C. Flowers & Co.)
 * Bill Pullman as Jamie Dimon (Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase)
 * Tony Shalhoub as John Mack (Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley)
 * James Woods as Dick Fuld (Chairman and CEO, Lehman Brothers)
 * Ayad Akhtar as Neel Kashkari (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics and Development)
 * Kathy Baker as Wendy Paulson (Wife of Henry Paulson)
 * Amy Carlson as Erin Callan (CFO, Lehman Brothers)
 * Evan Handler as Lloyd Blankfein (Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs)
 * John Heard as Joe Gregory (President and COO, Lehman Brothers)


 * Dan Hedaya as Rep. Barney Frank (Chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee (D-MA))
 * Peter Hermann as Christopher Cox (Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
 * Chance Kelly as Bart McDade (President and COO, Lehman Brothers)
 * Tom Mason as Bob Willumstad (Chairman and CEO, AIG)
 * Ajay Mehta as Vikram Pandit (CEO, Citigroup)
 * Tom Tammi as Jeff Immelt (CEO, General Electric)
 * Laila Robins as Christine Lagarde (French Finance Minister)
 * Victor Slezak as Greg Curl (Director of Planning, Bank of America)
 * Joey Slotnick as Dan Jester (Retired Goldman Sachs banker and newly appointed Paulson Advisor)
 * Casey Biggs as Richard Kovacevich (Chairman, Wells Fargo & Company)
 * Steve Tom as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)
 * Buddy Jones as Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
 * Jonathan Freeman as Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)
 * Linda Glick as Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House of Representatives (D-CA))
 * Patricia Randell as Sheila Bair (Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)
 * George Taylor as Sir Callum McCarthy (Chairman of the Financial Services Authority)

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.

Home media
The DVD was released on June 12, 2012.