''Too Big to Fail'' is a 2011 American

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

directed by

Curtis Hanson Curtis Lee Hanson (March 24, 1945 – September 20, 2016) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His directing work included the psychological thriller '' The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'' (1992), the neo-noir crime film ''L. ...

and written by

Peter Gould Peter Gould is an American television writer, director and producer. He worked on all five seasons of the AMC drama ''Breaking Bad''. He was nominated for four Writers Guild of America (WGA) Awards for his work on the series. After ''Breaking ...

, based on

Andrew Ross Sorkin Andrew Ross Sorkin (born February 19, 1977) is an American journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for ''The New York Times'' and a co-anchor of CNBC's ''Squawk Box.'' He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news s ...

's 2009 non-fiction book '' Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves''. The film aired on HBO on May 23, 2011. It received 11 nominations at the

63rd Primetime Emmy Awards The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards, honoring the best in prime time television programming from June 1, 2010 until May 31, 2011, were held on Sunday, September 18, 2011, at the Nokia Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, California. Fox televised the c ...

;

Paul Giamatti Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti (; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor and film producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in '' Private Parts'' as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, leading to supporting roles in ''Saving Private R ...

'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 The Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series is an award given by the Screen Actors Guild to honor the finest acting achievements in Miniseries or Television Movie. Winners and ...

at the 18th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Plot summary

''Too Big to Fail'' chronicles the 2008 financial meltdown, focusing on the actions of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the

Federal Reserve System The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

, to contain the problems during the period of August 2008 to October 13, 2008. The film starts with clips of news reports about the mortgage industry crisis and the forced sale of the troubled

Bear Stearns The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York-based global investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The comp ...

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...

, with Fed guarantees. With Bear Stearns out of the picture, short sellers have turned their attention on

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, a ...

. In need of capital, CEO Dick Fuld reluctantly fires COO Joe Gregory and CFO Erin Callan, naming Bart McDade as the new president and COO. McDade begins to successfully negotiate a deal with Korean investors, hinging on the condition that Lehman's

toxic Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subs ...

real estate is excluded. The deal falls through, however, when Fuld's pride gets the best of him and he tries to coerce the Koreans into accepting the real estate assets. Paulson is adamant that the government will not subsidize any more acquisitions, but it becomes clear the most promising buyer for Lehman,

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...

, is uninterested without Fed involvement. Paulson and

President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed) is one of 12 regional reserve banks of the Federal Reserve System, which is the American central bank. It is described as being the most important of the banks, due to it being in Economy of ...

Timothy Geithner Timothy Franz Geithner (; born August 18, 1961) is a former American central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. He was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank o ...

gather the leaders of the biggest banks, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein,

CEO Jamie Dimon, and

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

CEO John Mack, to convince them to underwrite the deal themselves. During a break in negotiations, another threatened firm, Merrill Lynch, approaches Bank of America to buy them instead, which Paulson tacitly okays. With Bank of America purchasing Merrill Lynch, the only other buyer is British firm Barclays, but their involvement is blocked by British banking regulators. Lehman collapses and is forced into bankruptcy. Meanwhile, insurance firm

AIG American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...

also begins to fail. Lehman's collapse affects the entire financial market, and the stock market goes into freefall. Blankfein, Mack, and

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

CEO Jeffrey Immelt inform Paulson they are unable to do business, and French Finance Minister

Christine Lagarde Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde (; née Lallouette, ; born 1 January 1956) is a French politician and lawyer who has been serving as President of the European Central Bank since 2019. She previously served as the 11th managing director of the ...

warns him 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. Bernanke argues that the

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

must pass legislation to authorize any continued intervention by the Fed or the Treasury. With the availability of

credit Credit (from Latin verb ''credit'', meaning "one believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt) ...

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, polarizing the Republicans and Democrats on the issue. Paulson has to threaten McCain not to interfere and beg the Democrats, led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, not to back away from the negotiations. After a wave of panic and personal haranguing from

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

George W. Bush, the legislation passes on a second attempt and the

Troubled Asset Relief Program The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President ...

(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 The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures credi ...

Chair Sheila Bair, Paulson informs the banks that they will receive mandatory capital injections. The banks eventually agree, but Paulson's staff laments that the parties who caused the crisis are being allowed to dictate the terms of how they should use the billions with which they are being bailed out. In private conference, Bernanke and Paulson lament that, although the intent of TARP is for the banks to use the loan money to restore credit for ordinary consumers, the legislation stops short of forcing them to do so. An epilogue notes that the banks did not, in fact, use the loan money as intended, but instead returned it at their earliest opportunity, and the stock market still crashed and was followed by a rash of home foreclosures. Nevertheless, bank mergers continued in the wake of the crisis, and now only ten financial institutions hold 77% of all U.S. banking assets and have been declared

too big to fail "Too big to fail" (TBTF) and "too big to jail" is a theory in banking and finance that asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the great ...

Cast

The cast includes the following: *

William Hurt William McChord Hurt (March 20, 1950 – March 13, 2022) was an American actor. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he received various awards including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. H ...

as Henry Paulson ( U.S. Treasury Secretary and former Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs) *

Edward Asner Eddie Asner (; November 15, 1929 – August 29, 2021) was an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' a ...

Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net ...

(Primary shareholder, Chairman and CEO,

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float (the retained premiu ...

) *

Billy Crudup William Gaither Crudup (; born July 8, 1968) is an American actor. He is a four-time Tony Award nominee, winning once for his performance in Tom Stoppard's play ''The Coast of Utopia'' in 2007. He has starred in numerous high-profile films, in ...

(President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) *

as Ben Bernanke (

Chairman of the Federal Reserve The chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the head of the Federal Reserve, and is the active executive officer of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The chair shall preside at the meetings of the Boa ...

) *

Topher Grace Christopher John Grace ( ; born July 12, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for portraying Eric Forman in the Fox sitcom ''That '70s Show'', Eddie Brock / Venom in Sam Raimi's film ''Spider-Man 3'', Pete Monash in '' Win a Date with Tad H ...

as Jim Wilkinson (Chief of Staff, U.S. Treasury Department) * Matthew Modine as John Thain (Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch) *

Cynthia Nixon Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is an American actress, activist, and theater director. For her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series ''Sex and the City'' (1998–2004), she won the 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supp ...

as Michele Davis (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Relations and Director of Policy Planning) *

Michael O'Keefe Michael O'Keefe (born Raymond Peter O'Keefe, Jr.; April 24, 1955) is an American actor, known for his roles as Danny Noonan in '' Caddyshack'', Ben Meechum in '' The Great Santini,'' for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for B ...

as Chris Flowers (Chairman and CEO, J.C. Flowers & Co.) *

Bill Pullman William Pullman (born December 17, 1953) is an American actor. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater, he was an adjunct professor at Montana State University before deciding to pursue acting. He made his film debut in ''R ...

as Jamie Dimon (Chairman and CEO,

) *

Tony Shalhoub Anthony Marc Shalhoub ( ; born October 9, 1953), is an American actor. His accolades include five Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, six Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award nomination. He played Adrian Monk in the USA N ...

as John Mack (Chairman and CEO,

) *

James Woods James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American actor. He is known for his work in various film, stage, and television productions. He started his career in minor roles on and off- Broadway. In 1972, he appeared in ''The Trial of the ...

as Dick Fuld (Chairman and CEO,

) *

Ayad Akhtar Ayad Akhtar (born October 28, 1970) is an American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter of Pakistani heritage, awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His work has received two Tony Award nominations for Best Play, an Award in Literature fr ...

Neel Kashkari Neel Tushar Kashkari
Kathy Baker } Katherine Whitton Baker (born June 8, 1950) is an American actress. Baker began her career in theater and made her screen debut in the 1983 drama film '' The Right Stuff''. She received the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Suppor ...

as Wendy Paulson (Wife of Henry Paulson) * Amy Carlson as Erin Callan (CFO, Lehman Brothers) *

Evan Handler Evan Handler (born January 10, 1961) is an American actor who is best known for playing Harry Goldenblatt, a divorce attorney and later husband of Charlotte York on ''Sex and the City'' (2002–2004) and its revival series ''And Just Like That…' ...

as Lloyd Blankfein (Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs) * John Heard as Joe Gregory (President and COO, Lehman Brothers) * Dan Hedaya as Rep.

Barney Frank Barnett Frank (born March 31, 1940) is a former American politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013. A Democrat, Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committ ...

(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 The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

) *

Chance Kelly Chance Kelly is an American film and television actor who portrayed NFL Coach Mike Martz in the film American Underdog (2021). He also played Detective Ed Cutler on the NBC series ''Aquarius''. He is also known for starring as Lt. Col. "Godfathe ...

as Bart McDade (President and COO, Lehman Brothers) * Tom Mason as Bob Willumstad (Chairman and CEO,

) * Ajay Mehta as Vikram Pandit (CEO, Citigroup) * Tom Tammi as Jeffrey Immelt (CEO,

) * Laila Robins as

( French Finance Minister) * Victor Slezak as Greg Curl (Director of Planning,

) *

Joey Slotnick Joseph Slotnick (born October 2, 1968) is an American film actor and voice actor. He is known for roles in ''Twister'' (1996), ''Hollow Man'' (2000), ''Elevator'' (2011), ''The Single Guy'' (1995–1997), and ''Nip/Tuck'' (2003-2006). Life and c ...

as Dan Jester (Retired Goldman Sachs banker and newly appointed Paulson Advisor) *

Casey Biggs Casey Patrick Biggs (born April 4, 1955) is an American actor, best known throughout the '' Star Trek'' community for starring as the Cardassian Damar, on '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine''. He has appeared in over eighty film and television and st ...

as Richard Kovacevich (Chairman,

Wells Fargo & Company Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...

) *

Steve Tom Stephen Wilson Tom (born September 20, 1953) is an American actor best known for hosting the HBO comedy series ''Funny or Die Presents''. Career He has guest-starred in a number of television series including ''Parks and Recreation, Major Cri ...

as Sen.

Chris Dodd Christopher John Dodd (born May 27, 1944) is an American lobbyist, lawyer, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1981 to 2011. Dodd is the longest-serving senator in Connecticut's history. ...

(D-CT) * Bud Jones as Sen.

Harry Reid Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Sena ...

(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 The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures cr ...

) * George Taylor as Sir

Callum McCarthy Sir Callum McCarthy (born 29 February 1944) is the former chairman of the Financial Services Authority. He is also the former non-executive chairman of Promontory Financial Group's UK affiliate. Early life and education McCarthy attended Manchest ...

(Chairman of the Financial Services Authority)

Reception

Critical reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 74%, based on 27 reviews, and an average rating of 6/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the movie received a weighted average score of 67/100 from 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' gave the film a B rating.

Awards and nominations

Home media

The DVD was released on June 12, 2012.

Notes

References

External links

HBO Films: Too Big To Fail
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Too Big To Fail 2011 films 2011 biographical drama films 2010s American films 2010s business films 2010s English-language films 2010s political drama films American biographical drama films American business films American drama television films American political drama films Biographical films about businesspeople Biographical films about politicians Biographical television films Cultural depictions of businesspeople Cultural depictions of politicians Cultural depictions of American men Films about financial crises Films based on non-fiction books Films directed by Curtis Hanson Films scored by Marcelo Zarvos Films set in 2008 Films set in the Great Recession Films shot in New York City Films with screenplays by Peter Gould HBO Films films Television films based on books Wall Street films