'Inside Job' — 5 out of 5 stars
It is a morbid yet undeniable truth that some of the most frightening and chillingly haunting cinematic experiences came not from the genre of horror, but of documentary.
Although movies such as “Saw” and “Paranormal Activity” can certainly make one scream and clutch tightly at the arm of a boyfriend or girlfriend, the startling truths revealed by documentaries like last year’s “Food Inc.,” and now Charles Ferguson’s “Inside Job” can leave the viewer with a much more real and lasting sense of foreboding.
“Inside Job” opens like a Björk music video. Grand, sweeping shots of Iceland’s countryside take the audience to the beginning of the global economic meltdown. Matt Damon talks viewers through the modern-day cautionary fable of how one of the world’s most advanced and stable countries, through deregulation and increasing greed, went from near utopia-like prosperity to complete collapse in less than a decade.
But that’s just an appetizer, affecting a paltry 300,000 or so people, and whetting the appetite for the prime rib that is the American economic crash of 2008.
Over the next hour and a half, “Inside Job” presents an exhaustive and meticulous investigation into just what the hell went wrong.
Charles Ferguson managed to assemble an impressive cast of interviewees. These are the men who have the economic blood on their hands, who fly personal jets high above the earth while the common man toils for pennies and stale bread on its surface. The audience watches these men sit in their Prada suits and deny blame, and responsibility as the viewer wonders how the off-screen interviewer managed to avoid resorting to physical violence against them.
The reason that a documentary can be more effective than a traditional drama is oftentimes the truth really is stranger than fiction. And some of the horrific utterances of these men — said on-camera, even — well, you just can’t write shit like that. The audience has no choice but to laugh with incredulity, all the while trying to forget the fact that these are the men running our country.
“Inside Job” is not a rollicking good time at the Cineplex, but it is an absolutely necessary one if America has any hope of learning from its past mistakes.