In a year that saw Sara Palin running for VP, few things may be considered worst — yet the financial meltdown of global economies outwitted the formidable Alaska governor who keeps an eye on Russia from her bedroom window! The team at WearetheMovies.com bids farewell to the dismal 2008 with a selection of the finest films that forewarn the very idea of greed.
#1
Wall Street
Oliver Stone | USA | 1987
125 min
Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko is to greed what Willy Wonka is to chocolates: a character identifying a need. Gekko is so on the edge and committed to his cause that he even keeps a blood pressure monitor on his desk. As a movie-construct, he is everything we may have aspired to be at some point in our lives — rich, in control and very, very powerful. Oliver Stone’s film has become a legendary time-capsule for the bullish, bustling 80′s, and for its endlessly quotable dialogues, the most infamous of which, “greed is good,” creepily rationalizes the need for more.
#2
The Insider
Michael Mann | USA | 1999
157 min
One man will tell the truth, but they won’t air it. The more truth he tells, the worse it gets. Russell Crowe plays a low-key tobacco company whistleblower who epitomizes the voice of conscience and reason, ultimately leading to his personal and professional ruin. The Insider is a cautionary tale of corporate-malfeasance of the worst kind. Al Pacino lights up the screen as a ’60 Minutes’ producer in his trademark hoo-ha style!
#3
The Corporation
Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbot | USA | 2004
147 min
This fascinating documentary by Mark Achbar places the very concept of corporations — their stakeholders and the blind pursuit of amassing wealth to become richer — at the centre of a pathological need. Achbar’s winning approach is to go behind-the-scenes and offer a scathing look at some of the tactics large corporations, from pharmaceuticals to oil companies, employ in their road to success. Entertaining, educational and exhaustively comprehensive.
#4
L.A. Confidential
Curtis Hanson | USA | 1997
138 min
Few things are more unsettling when the very people who exist to serve and protect you -– cops -– are those with the most questionable ethics. Director Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential not only revives the modern film noir, but also creates a dizzying thriller of personal and institutional corruption, with nearly every character, even the so-called good guys, turning out to be entirely self-serving, possessing a moral compass so messed up that you sometimes can’t even tell them from those bad guys with an insatiable hunger for money money money.
#5
Why We Fight
Eugene Jarecki | USA | 2005
98 min
Eugene Jarecki’s criminally underrated documentary bravely asks questions on policy, and highlights America’s torrid history of militarism in bed with free enterprise. In this fearless film, one of America’s greatest war heroes, Eisenhower warns against the “military-industrial complex,” encapsulated by this bit of trivia: a military budget of over $400 billion (approx. 52 percent of all federal spending; and only 7 percent is devoted to education) feeds a vast array of private-sector contractors and K Street lobbyists, making the machineries of war a robust business for greedy political actors.
#6
Jaws
Steven Spielberg | USA | 1975
124 min
Spielberg’s most inventive film is also a clever allegory for capitalist greed run amok. When a great white shark begins to terrorize a sleepy island community, the town mayor turns a blind eye to severed limbs washing ashore just so he can keep the beach open for tourists over a busy holiday. Then a couple of kids get eaten alive right in front of parents sunbathing and sipping lemonade. The real villain: the shark or the capitalist? Could they be one and the same?
#7
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Alex Gibney | USA | 2005
110 min
Much before household names such as Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG made the front page (for very wrong reasons), Enron was corporate America’s big financial mistake. This documentary painstakingly highlights how top management created an atmosphere of deregulation, greed and political power, managing to walk away with more than a billion dollars while all others lost everything including their 401k and retirement benefits. Powerfully insightful in the way it reveals how greed can become a desirable trait and cause of a major downfall.
#8
I.O.U.S.A
Patrick Creadon | USA | 2008
85 min
How did America accumulate a $10 trillion national debt? How did the buy now, pay later frenzy pull a nation deeper into the quicksand of mortgages and credit card bills? These questions and more are examined in this relevant documentary by Robert Creadon, who uses interviews with testimonies of Fed chairman Paul Volcker, billionaire Warren Buffett, and former secretaries of the treasury Robert Rubin and Paul O’Neill to document how the US financial disaster may have begun, and how the greedy consumer and legislator may be all part of the same problem.
#9
Glengarry Glen Ross
James Foley | USA | 1992
100 min
A bunch of salesmen; lots of swearing! Based on David Mamet’s erudite play, this film is not only a showcase of dialog and acting, but a disturbing examination of one group of men that will stop at nothing to make a sale, even if it means eradicating any trace of humanity. If greed had a new name, we think it could be Blake, the boss-from-hell played by Alec Baldwin.
#10
Robocop
Paul Verhoeven | USA | 1987
103 min
OCP is building a new Detroit. And thuggery and free enterprise crime is a part of it. Made at the bitter end of Reagan’s era, Paul Verhoeven’s masterpiece satirizes the banal cruelty of big corporations and the villains that run them. Savor this moment of black comedy from the film:
[The ED-209 machine has malfunctioned during a demonstration, killing executive Kinney in the boardroom. He was shot to smithereens, and his bullet-ridden corpse lies on the conference table.]
OCP President: “Dick, I’m very disappointed.”
Dick Jones: “I’m sure it’s only a glitch. A temporary setback.”
OCP President: “You call this a GLITCH?”
[pause]
OCP President: “We’re scheduled to begin construction in 6 months. Your temporary setback could cost us 50 million dollars in interest payments alone!”
This article was written by John Murdoch and Faizan Rashid, with input from Kamal Tolani. The results were polled by Faizan Rashid, John Murdoch, Kamal Tolani, Shariq Madani and MADali.
