DVDebut: Christophe Barratier's powerhouse, French-financial-crisis film, THE OUTSIDER

Having seen and enjoyed Christophe Barratier's three previous films -- The Chorus, Paris 36 and yet another War of the Buttons remake -- TrustMovies was anxious to see what this nostalgia-dipped filmmaker has been up to of late. Interestingly, his current film, THE OUTSIDER, is also his least nostalgic (unless you count the financial crisis of the decade past as a piece of nostalgia) and may very well be his best movie yet.

As co-adapted (with Laurent Turner) and directed by Barratier (shown below), from the memoir by Jérôme Kerviel -- the trader involved and responsible (with the help, of course, of his bosses) for what happend at one of France's larges and most "reputable" banks -- the movie is both crackerjack entertainment and yet another indictment of the world's financial establishment.

What Barratier, his cast and crew capture particularly well is the atmosphere of the trading room -- this is as good as I've seen; better, in fact, that the overblown and so-pleased-with-itself version Scorsese gave us in The Wolf of Wall Street and certainly on a par with The Big Short. Because the movie is based on Kerviel's story, as told by him, we of course get a biased viewpoint, and yet the filmmaker and his star, the excellent and increasingly versatile Arthur Dupont, (of One to Another, Bus Palladium and Haute Cuisine) show us both the relatively innocent young man who begins the tale and the hotshot, semi-sleazebag he eventually becomes.

Dupont's fine performance (the actor is shown above and below, left) also allows us to view the incremental changes in Kerviel as he moves along his path. This fellow was less a crook than a very good trader, as well as a smart, intuitive man.

The supporting cast is made up of some excellent actors, too, especially François-Xavier Demaison (above, right) who plays Kerviel's initial boss -- a fellow who is smart, nasty, smarmy, and just full of Jesus allusions. This is a terrific, award-calibre performance.

Romance is provided by the attractive and feisty Sabrina Ouazani (above, left), as the young IT woman Kerviel falls for, while Thomas Coumans (above, right) portrays Mathieu, his best friend at the bank, a man who tries to keep our would-be hero on the straight-and-narrow.

We get a taste of Kerviel's family life, too, as well as some of his extra-curricular activities (below) but mostly we see him turn from a quick-study innocent into a force of nature so far as trading is concerned. And when the shit finally hits the fan, we see in action the much-vaunted "team spirit" (that doubles as the movie's aka title), as team mates, and especially the bank's bosses, run for cover.

The Outsider is yet another necessary lesson in why the world's financial sector so desperately needs those very regulations that seem to be currently disappearing -- perhaps for good.

From Distrib Films US, reaching DVD via Icarus Film Home Video, the movie hit the street this past Tuesday, June 5 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Prosecuting those "big" banks? Yeah, right. Steve James' invigorating, infuriating doc, ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL

Those of us who lived in the New York City area back in 2012 may remember a news story about a small community bank located in Manhattan's Chinatown, the heads of which were arrested and taken off in handcuffs as they kept their faces from being seen -- to major media coverage, of course -- due to their supposedly falsifying loan applications for mortgages. This sort of thing was what nearly brought the world economy to its knees, right? So, hey: finally law enforcement is going after the bad guys? Yeah, sure.

Steve James, shown at left, who has over the years given us some pretty impressive documentaries (Hoop Dreams and Life Itself come immediately to mind), now offers up a doc -- ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL -- that practically defines the word injustice, showing it masquerading as its very opposite while simultaneously taking in other American preoccupations such as racism, bullying and toadying to wealth and power. All of this is shown so clearly, quietly and therefore all the more shockingly by Mr. James -- via the Chinese-American family that owns the bank and who had to endure years of prosecution and its accompanying trauma and stress -- that the viewer's response at the end of this 90-minute documentary is likely to be one of relief coupled to immense anger.

How Mr. James weaves his tale of how and why and what happened next is exemplary, letting us watch and learn how this bank, that had served its community so well over decades, came into being and continued to operate. We meet the bank's founder Thomas Sung (above), his wife Hwei Lin (below) and and their daughters. shown further below -- one of whom worked for the very justice department that prosecuted the bank.

We also learn how the bank handled -- in the kind of exemplary fashion that, had the bigger banks done the same, might have prevented the financial crisis -- the loan officer who it discovered was arranging fraudulent loans. The trial itself, that we see via courtroom drawings, is handled with verve and suspense. Thanks to the media coverage, which as usual is very big on initial arrest and less so regarding further results, you may not know or remember how things turned out.

We get to know the family somewhat, too -- from Mr. and Mrs Sung's loved of everyone's favorite "banking" movie (It's a Wonderful Life) to their eating habits and how the kids must care for their dad -- as the film wends its way to completion.

How the prosecution, led by District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and his staff, built its case (out of very little and yet cost taxpayers 10 million dollars and five years of time) adds to the anger that arises and should make those of us who voted for Vance very sorry for our misplaced trust. How the prosecution reacts to its failure proves even more sour and troubling.

What rankles most, however, is the constant sense of injustice that hovers over this entire movie. Why this bank -- when its record concerning solid loans that were paid off was among the very best? Why this bank -- which, when it first learned of the irregular practices of its loan officer, fired the man and immediately reported the incident to compliance? Why this bank -- which served its community's needs for so long and so well?

See the documentary, arrive at your own conclusions, and start seething. From PBS Distribution, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail opens this Friday, May 19, in New York City at the IFC Center, in Los Angeles on June 9 at Landmark's NuArt, and will then have a limited release nationwide.
Click here to find the theater nearest you.

"Mainstream" movie of the year: Adam McKay's important and marvelously entertaining THE BIG SHORT

Having seen only a handful of the usual mainstream contenders for Best Picture "Oscar," TrustMovies is in no position to weigh in officially. Of everything he's seen so far, however, THE BIG SHORT -- Adam McKay's adaptation of Michael Lewis' seminal non-fiction account of a few smart "money" guys who saw the financial collapse coming -- is by far the most important film of the year. It is also among the most entertaining.

Yes, Spotlight is equally riveting and is also about something very important. But I would suggest that the subject of McKay's movie (the filmmaker is pictured at left) -- the 2008 worldwide financial collapse -- is even more important than the Catholic Church's long-running parade of sexual-predator priests. Why? Because what caused that financial collapse affects many more of us and is still going on, to the horrific detriment of America's (and most of the world's) poor and middle class -- to everyone, in fact, except the wealthy. It is most responsible for the widening gap between the rich and the rest of us, and the movie points this up like nothing we've so far seen, and does so in a manner to make us laugh, sure, but then grow very, very angry. All over again.

Both films sport crackerjack casts, and each director draws terrific a performance from every actor. But because The Big Short features a number of characters who are not a little bizarre, this makes for some sublimely entertaining performances, especially from Christian Bale, (below), Steve Carell (above, with his hand up, in one of the film's pivotal scenes) and Ryan Gosling (shown two photos below, center right, facing Mr. Carell).

Each actor is superb, though never "showy," at literally every moment in which he appears on screen. And McKay makes the most of them, as well as of his very fine supporting cast.  This is, by the way, a very "male" movie -- as is, of course, the Wall Street/Banking sector of our society.

Women, with very few exceptions, are peripheral to this business, and how Mc Kay uses them here cannot be unintentional. Marisa Tomei is that stand-by-your-man wife; Melissa Leo the blinkered career woman, and, in his most talked-about touch, explanatory guides Margot Robbie (in a bubble bath) and Selena Gomez (at a casino table) are right out of your typical James Bond movie.

The story that McKay and Lewis (along with co-adaptor Charles Randolph) offer up is not the easiest one to follow, unless you've already followed that financial collapse with some acuity. But these guys make it about as easy to access, as possible, considering. And they make it surprisingly fun and funny, as well -- even if the laughs are often at our own expense. The scene with one of the "enablers" (Byron Mann, above, left) toward the film's conclusion is a humdinger indeed.

At 130 minutes, this Short is not short, but there's not a boring moment in the whole shebang. In fact, things seems to grow ever more important, appalling and entertaining as the film builds to its suspenseful (even though of-course-we-know-what-happened) conclusion. (Above are, left and right, Finn Witrock and John Magaro as relative newbies on the big-time financial block.)

The movie is a call to action -- of some sort, at least. Republicans will do all they can to discredit it, but I'm afraid the cat is out of the bag. Wall Street and the Banks are not just corrupt; they are uber-corrupt. And so are our politicians for allowing this greed and stupidity to flourish. (Above: Billy Magnussen and Max Greenfield as two slimey and unrepentant sub-prime mortgage brokers.)

I have to admit that nothing in the past career of Mr. McKay would have given me an idea that he could bring us a movie this important -- and at this level of film smarts. Well, I know now. And I am duly impressed. The manner in which he occasionally breaks the "fourth wall" and how he handles those explanatory moments are sophisticated marvels of making the most of what needs to be done.

TrustMovies is also rather amazed that Paramount -- a Viacom company, hello -- released the film, but I am grateful that it has. Whatever The Big Short does or does not achieve come awards time, this wake-up call will have reached millions in the coming months and millions more when it finally arrives on video and digital.  If you can't wait till then, just know that it is worth the price of a theatrical admission -- and then some.
Click here to learn where you can view it now. 

In Joe Berlinger's HANK: 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK, Mr. Paulson tells his side of the meltdown

With so very much to view out there in Netflix streaming-land, TrustMovies is not sure he'd have watched HANK: 5 YEARS FROM THE BRINK -- the story of how Hank Paulson helped this country and the world avoid a complete financial meltdown -- were it not that its filmmaker is Joe Berlinger, the guy who gave us the Paradise Lost trilogy, Crude, and other worthwhile documentaries. TM is glad he did because -- even after all the many documentaries and docu-dramas that have tackled one or another aspect of this hugely harmful fiasco, from the Cockburns' American Casino to Chasing Madoff -- this one remains of interest, worth seeing and hearing (yes, it's mostly talking heads again) as much for the fact that it seems to sink its own protagonist and torpedo his scenario as anything else.

Mr. Berlinger, shown at left, appears to be investigating here only his subject's side of the story, allowing the much (depending on which camp you occupy) reviled or loved Mr. Paulson to explain, with occasional questions from the filmmaker, what happened and why. Paulson's wife Wendy is also on hand to explain and second some of this banker/administrator's ideas and actions, as well as his "character." Wendy, shown below, is impressive as a no-nonsense woman who has stood by her man for decades now.

We learn more about Paulson here than we have elsewhere, though there is no mention of his religion -- Christian Science, again! -- and how it might have affected his ideas and actions (and believe me, as an ex-Christian Scientist, this odd religion surely does). We get some history -- how he and Wendy met and did not, initially, hit it off; his first "bailout," of Lockheed, back in the 70s; his work in and with the Nixon administration; and his tenure at Goldman Sachs, which led eventualy to his job as CEO; and his appointment by George W. Bush (who asked several times before Paulson agreed: evidently his family members were not that keen on the activities of the Bush administration) as Secretary of the Treasury.

Of course, it's the story of the meltdown -- how it happened and who did what (or often didn't) -- that is most "grabbing" here, and though we've heard it before, notably well in the cable TV movie Too Big to Fail, Paulson's story still rivets. I wish Berlinger had been more forceful in finding out why Bear Stearns was "rescued" while Lehman Brothers was allowed to collapse. (Could Richard Fuld really be that big an asshole, or was Lehman Brothers simply small enough to fail?)

While Paulson pays lip-service to the need for better regulation of the banks and Wall Street, somehow this is all it ever sounds like: more tiresome blather, too-little-too-late. This co-joined industry, as we have learned and still learn daily from information that continues to leak out of this soiled sieve, is rotten to the core -- just as are the would be regulators who "service" it instead of regulating it, and the agencies that "rate" its trash as triple A.

The section on those famous loan carriers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and whether they are indeed part of the government or not, is fascinating and necessary to consider, while Paulson's talk of how the Domino Theory of failing banks (and shadow banks) should instead be thought of as a Popcorn Theory makes little sense and in any case is not explained well at all. And why include such a lengthy discussion of a cashmere coat Paulson once bought at Bergdorf's (and then returned, upon some nagging from Wendy) unless one is dead set on proving what a thrifty and non-material-possessions-loving family this is?

We sense an anger in Paulson (below) regarding the hypocrisy of these CEOs, none of whom at the time of the crisis and their acceptance of a government bail-out like TARP wanted to admit that their firm was in trouble. But when Paulson make a statement like "People generally believe that Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner (shown above) and I tell the truth," one is a bit taken aback. By not telling the whole truth but only using selective portions, Paulson and that whole gang were more part of the problem than any solution. Yet he needs to see himself as some kind of savior. (He also completely ignores what Goldman Sachs was doing in derivatives when he was in charge of it and how much money he walked away with during those years.)

The man certainly has some fine qualities, and he finally comes across as a relatively decent guy in the service of much worse men. What should make you particularly angry at this movie is how Paulson manages to side-step so well. "We will always have financial crises, no matter what the regulatory system is," he insists. Oh, Please. Let's put some real regulations back first, and then talk about it. He tells us that he left a blueprint for regulation of the industry. Lovely -- but what is it, exactly, and is anyone acting on it?

Available now via Netflix streaming, Hank: 5 Years from the Brink is a good movie to get your blood pressure back up while taking yet another walk down an all-too-recent and ugly memory lane. I suspect Berlinger has somehow acted here as a stealth agent, allowing Paulson and crew to "explain" themselves and then compiling and editing it all their "innocence" into something a little less than benign.

None of the photos above are from the film itself. 

I couldn't find any (the movie is not being given 

much of a marketing push), and so I

just grabbed a few off the internet....