Inside Job (DVD)

Inside Job (2010), documentary. The financial crisis of 2008, which gave rise to the current Great Recession, is shown to be the result of Wall Street shenanigans, aided by government, stretching back to the Reagan administration in the 1980s. First came deregulation of the financial markets, which led to increasingly risky investment practices, ending in sub-prime mortgages packaged into collateralized debt obligations, which could be insured by credit default swaps. The film makes sense out of these complicated instruments, and presents a rogues' gallery of men (and they were mostly men) who contributed, either actively or by failing to act, to the great crisis of 2008. Alarmingly, some of the men most responsible for the financial crisis have been appointed to positions of power by the Obama administration. In other words, nothing is being done to rectify the wrongs the were perpetrated on America and the world by Wall Street power brokers. It's not a very comforting film, but it tells the story that is important to be told. The subtitles that come with the disc are quite good. No closed captions are offered -- or needed. Grade: A