INSIDE JOB; The Year's Most Important Documentary

By Shaun Munro / July 1, 2011

rating: 4

If there's any documentary that even the most casual of cinemagoers should drag themselves to see this year, it is unquestionably Charles Ferguson's incendiary Inside Job, an incredibly passionate, densely-detailed, meticulously-researched exposé of 2008's financial collapse. The extensive sit-downs that comprise this stellar doc - in which Ferguson chats with financial experts, reporters, psychologists and even those apparently complicit in the whole mess - only serve to remind us of the film's near-universal pertinence; after all, we all care about where our money goes, don't we? If you're not spitting bile by the end of Inside Job, check your pulse. Ferguson's chilling hypothesis from the outset is that this is very much a catastrophe - complete with the bankruptcy, lost homes and ruined lives it caused - that could have been entirely avoided, while those reponsible for it have been given little more than a light slap on the wrist. Citing Iceland's recent collapse as a precursor, Ferguson remarks how the problem appears to have been caused by deregulation, a risky move in which governmental controls over the financial sector as a whole are considerably lessened, allowing glorified gambling to take place with people's money. Over 109 infuriating and enthralling minutes, Ferguson provides a captivating and thoroughly plausible essay for why the financial disaster occured as it did, yet his grandest achievement is not merely the conciseness of his work, but the accessibility of it. While Inside Job is positively awash in technical jargon - subprime, CDOs, CDAs, hedging, derivatives, securites etc - he quite remarkably has condensed the issue down to the simplest terms possible without trivialising the problem or dumbing it down. That he chose the ever-likeable Matt Damon as his narrator only makes it feel more familiar and easier to digest, a bitter pill though it is. Keeping up still requires the viewer to pay attention, naturally, but sharp on-screen graphics and a trajectory somewhat resembling a more familiar cinematic narrative keep the project from ever seeming hyperbolic despite its incredible density of information. While obviously pitched from the Michael Moore school of Liberal ambushing, the footage so often speaks for itself that even staunch Conservatives are liable to foam at the mouth as the shadowy suits and sneering stooges are left speechless, mouths literally agape after Ferguson has eviscerated them before us on-screen. Shockingly, nobody has gone to prison as a result of these transgressions, and seeing as a big-screen skewering is the best punishment that they're liable to get, Ferguson milks it for all it is worth. The most impressive way in which Ferguson acquits himself from perceived bias, however, is in furthering his criticism to encapsulate the fall-out of the recession - that is, what was left behind for the Obama administration. While left in an unenviable position, picking up the pieces of a shattered economy, Obama's unkept promises are duly noted by Ferguson, bravely left to linger in the mind in a move that too few like-minded documentarians would have made. What makes Inside Job that much better than any partisan politics would have allowed is that it is angry at just about everyone who had a part to play in the need for the film to even be made in the first place; Ferguson's aggressive, even invasive lines of questioning evoke the air of a dogged, fiercely dedicated journo on the lam, and most importantly, we always feel that he genuinely gives a damn. The real tragedy, though, is that there is no feasible solution to offer, only a haunting proclaimation that we're likely to repeat the same mistakes again. It won't be much of a popcorn-seller and it isn't overly exciting to watch, but the utterly transfixing Inside Job is an absolutely vital lesson in economics, and one that you owe it to yourself to see. Inside Job is released in the U.K. this Friday.