Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This is more of a documentary than a movie in that it looks at the debt problem that faces the United States, both in a national sense and a personal sense. One of the major things that I see from the documentary (and others like it) is that the national debt in many cases reflects personal debt. The United States as a superpower (and like many superpowers in the past, and no doubt into the future) is a superpower that is built on debt. In many cases superpowers reach their status by being creditor nations, however it seems that in many cases the turning point is when they go from being a net lender to a net borrower, and I suspect that that is the point when the superpower's days are numbered.In many cases the government can be a role-model for the people. Okay, granted, many people hate and distrust the government, and that is to be expected. People want to be free from interference in their lives, and the one thing that governments do, and do well, is interfere. However, what my point is is that if a government openly borrows and gets itself into debt, then the people are going to see that that is something that is okay to do themselves, and thus they are also going to use credit to support their goals and lifestyle. The major difference is that a government can survive (and even inflate away) the debt, whereas individuals cannot (though bankruptcy may be open to them, as this movie shows, even that has been stripped away).I guess the most disturbing thing about this documentary is how epidemic this debt problem is, and that the creditors actively target people who cannot, and will never be able to, pay back the debt. The banks do not make money out of simply the interest, but rather the fees and charges that they incur. In many cases the debt will never be paid back, and the banks don't care because they have already got the principle back, having packaged the loan and onsold it to other financial institutions. In the end this bad debts have been mixed up with good debts, and then flogged off the the pension funds. In a way the banks don't even see the interest, because that is also passed on to the pension funds. In a way, the people are being fleeced both ways, one way in forcing debt onto them, and the second way by simply replacing their life savings with IOUs that will never be paid back (in the same way that the Social Security fund of the United States has been replaced with IOUs).What is really sad is that the main targets are people who are not financially wise. That would have been me back in my 20s. Fortunately in Australia we have strict laws that prevent people who cannot pay back debt from getting into debt. This does not seem to be the case in the United States because it seems that the credit card companies flock to the universities to foist debt onto the students. The theory is that these people will be leaving university and getting good jobs, and thus in the future being able to pay it back. The catch is that through these years at university (particularly with their uni debt onto of everything) they are incurring more and more debt that they cannot afford to repay. In this film there is the sad story of two university students that go so far into debt that the only way out was to kill themselves (and I am surprised that there was no guarantors that the banks would then pursue to get the money back – in fact the other very surprising thing is that after a suicide, the survivors themselves were not being hounded – that would be what would happen here in Australia).However, this documentary was made in 2006, and three years later the whole edifice collapsed. If I had watched this back when it was made I wouldn't have known about the securities and financial magic that the banks used to get their principle back, but as with every financial work of magic, it all turns out to be little more than smoke and mirrors, and in the end the whole edifice came crashing down in 2008.

The credit card companies have been maxing out people for decades. In this documentary, it looks at it's predatory lending policies especially towards college students on campus. The credit cards were always meant as a safety net or if you didn't have money. Some people used their credit cards as life support in emergency situations. Our financial situation in this country has further deteriorated since this documentary. You don't have to watch Michael Moore's film to see the situation's effect. Armed bank robbers are less deadly than the bank robbers in suits and ties who walk in on Wall Street. They may not have guns but they have the access and ability to destroy our economic situation far more than armed bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde etc. Bank robberies don't happen like that anymore. It's done on the internet or in the policy meetings. The people you meet in this documentary are real and authentic. Debt has driven people to commit suicide because of the harassing phone calls and letters threatening to take away. That's the bottom dollar. Are the creditors far more interested in driving people to commit suicide or lose their sanity than get the money? It's a shame that it's going on and that people will be in debt until their dead. It's a perverted kind of freedom to be in debt like having a noose around your neck and the debt gets bigger than smaller with rising interest rates, penalties, and no breaks. Whatever happened to compassion and mercy in this society?

James D. Scurlock appears to be a virtual newcomer but his brilliant take on the debt industry and everything about it will open your eyes and will be an incredible eye opener. As some reviewers point out it may seem that the documentary is one sided but documentaries often are. Regardless of how the film is viewed it can be seen as a terrifying look at the mounting level of debt in our economy and our personal lives. The film even goes so far as to take the concept of debt to a far extreme and show several cases of how debt has literally caused the ruination of some lives and even in some cases, suicide. The film was informative and scary at the same time and was not boring for one minute given the amount of people and stories that the film covers. I can't judge a documentary based on the people in it really because they truly are real people, and the only thing you can really judge a documentary on is it's merit and how interesting it is. Indeed the film is entertaining and will give your system a serious shock when you see how incredible the issue of debt is in our country and on a personal basis. Definitely worth watching, you won't be disappointed for a minute. 9/10

Picking on our government and certain corporations with regards to debt and credit policy is like shooting fish in a barrel. So, the movie stuck to the easy stuff (credit card companies are bad and the government is ignoring the problem - both may be true) and the emotional stuff (people with sever psych problems or depression brought on by their spending habits who take their own lives) and skipped over what would have been a really good investigation.I'd like to know how people get into debt and what the process is. This movie completely ignored the "consumer" on focused on everyone else involved - and the blame was on the companies and the government. I'm not saying that those two aren't to blame at all, but there is a person who is spending and they should be held accountable.Finally, I would have liked to see more about the "typical American" with almost $10k of credit card debt. Find those "normal" people (not the extremes, which is what we were shown) and talk about their problems and why they get into debt in the first place.This movie missed so many opportunities and told so many half stories, that I was frustrated at at the end.