The Last Days of Lehman Brothers

It's interesting, because this was made before The Big Short movie - but one scene in particular was pretty clearly cribbed from this TV movie. It's just FAR better written and acted. This just felt a little too shticky. There was no consistent tone. One scene to the next the feel completely changed and it made no sense.

There were scenes with real dialogue with serious consequences...and lighthearted sitcom theme music. So weird.

This is a docu-drama about the 2008 US banking crisis made rather quickly by the BBC hence it's a little rough around the edges.

Although other films have subsequently been made, this one was first out of the blocks.

Lehman Brothers is a bank that has been in business since before the American Civil War. However in September 2008 they were in meltdown. Over the weekend the US Treasury Secretary (James Cromwell) has assembled the best of Wall Street in downtown Manhattan to save the banks from going under from its toxic assets.

They need to save the capitalists system from the Russian and Chinese.

Of course a lot of the others assembled in the room have their own toxic assets lurking behind them. We have drama, recriminations, plotting and even back stabbing, as they go about to save Lehman Brothers and maybe even their own skins.

James Cromwell as Hank Paulson cajoles them and at one points begs them to get things together.

Given that this drama might look dense and complicated because of the labyrinth nature of the deals that caused the crisis. It is raw human edged emotions that carry this drama through.

At the end we are left with shallow but rich people who still ended up doing rather nicely for themselves. All of the banks apart from Lehman got bailed out. After all Paulsen was the ultimate Wall Street insider.

The cast is a mixture of North American and British actors (playing Americans.) Cromwell given his size towers above the others. Even though politically he is the polar opposite with Paulsen's views, he does convey the urgency of the situation very well.

This documentary movie short enough to watch without learning too much what was going behind the scenes.

A narrative guy who is ID and responsibility in the company is unknown is talking randomly and not giving much insight.

We see a meeting room full of people but we don't know who they are. So if you are not familiar with the full story, I suppose you would struggle to follow.

Also terms are used is fine for a person with finance background but wouldn't mean much to others.

Overall a nice attempt but not to the point - leaves blanks to fill and the effect of the collapse has gone untouched.

A room full of kleptocrats, deciding how to save their companies while they can. A tale of rotten-to-the-core culture of the financial institutions, of greed, miscalculations, prevarication and the imperious high handed actions of the handful people of the Wall Street.. The biggest bankruptcy in history; $691 billion that shook the Wall Street and the aftershocks would be felt across the globe for the days to come. The movie however, is little laconic, could have been better. Average performances except Corey Johnson who delivers vivid performance as Dick Fuld. It is still a good watch ..

This was difficult to watch. It was, I believe, intended for outsiders. Unfortunately, only insiders would know the players without a score card. Not many casual viewers would have known that "Tim" was Tim Geithner; "Hank" was Hank Paulson, etc. Only Dick Fuld was identified and had I not read something about the period I would not have known who was being portrayed.

It was also a great story told very poorly. There was a brief voiced-over introduction by an irrelevant character but, nothing nearly in depth enough to initiate the casual observer as to the historic nature of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. In fact, we enter the story well into the crisis. Again, insiders would not have cared but, the casual observer, the people who need to watch this, would not have understood the references to Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac without some introduction or "ramping up" to tie the threads together and put the event into perspective. As such, without the before (Bear Sterns, Fannie and Freddie) and the after (AIG, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley), the story is about one rich dude with a bad attitude trying to get a number of "suits" to help him out of a jam. In actuality, it was a serious event the full implications of which we will not know for many years. The fact that 47 percent of Americans think the Republicans would do a better job of running the economy indicates how little about the causes of this crisis main street really understands; they are ready to give the keys to the car back to the guys who ruined it in the first place.

All in all --- important story directed at the wrong audience.