Comedian Sean Kleier went around New York City’s hot spots with a megaphone and a camera. In each location he began reciting the president’s epic speech from the movie, Independence Day.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail.

The cast was right out of a Robert Altman film, there was a large number of well known actors including William Hurt (Paulson – Sec. Treasury), James Woods (Fuld – Lehman Bros), Paul Giamatti (Bernanke – Chair, Federal Reserve), Bill Pullman (Dimon – JPMorgan Chase), Ed Asner (Buffet – Berkshire Hathaway), Billy Crudup (Geithner – President, Federal Reserve), Matthew Modine (Thain – CIT Group), Tony Shalhoub (Mack – Morgan Stanley), Topher Grace (Wilkinson), Cynthia Nixon (Davis), and many others. They all looked and played their parts very well with the exception that there seemed to be no effort made toward sounding like the people they played. It was difficult to get past the notable voices of the actors. Paul Giamatti sounds like Paul Giamatti and nothing like Ben Bernanke. Hurt sounded nothing like Paulson. Crudup nothing like Geithner. Perfection wasn’t necessary, but it seemed as though there was little to no effort made at all by the actors to at least sound a little more like the real people they were portraying and less like themselves.

The story opens on a  shot of Ronald Reagan. It is news footage of a speech he gives on deregulation. Credits play as we see an image of Clinton signing a piece of legislation as the audio of newsmakers make mention that this is Congress’ bill being singed. Alan Greenspan is seen and states, “Don’t regulate for regulation’s sake,” which is followed by Bush proclaiming everyone should live out the American dream and own their own home. Miscellaneous clips talks of high profits and subprime loans, and then mortgage meltdown and government bailout.

At this point, I am thinking this film is going to be about blame… and that blame is going to be deregulation ushered in by Reagan, the Republican Congress during the Clinton years, Bush 43, and Reagan through Bush’s Federal Reserve appointee, Alan Greenspan.

This prompts me to check the cast and crew to see who they support and if they are bringing their agenda to this story in their hopes to rewrite history and put Republicans in a negative light and Democrats in a positive light before the election in 2012. And, of course, the Director and the Writer are both ardent Obama supporters. All those at HBO support Obama like Co-President Eric Kessler, Co-President Richard Plepler, President of HBO entertainment Sue Naegle, President of HBO Films Len Amato and Executive Producers Paula Weinstein, Carol Fenelon, and Ezra Swerdlow. Even the Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau and Casting Director Alexa Fogel have contributed to Obama’s 2008 campaign. And the Obama supporting list of actors is long too: Topher Grace, William Hurt, Matthew Modine, Cynthia Nixon, and Amy Carlson. As if that’s not enough, there are many other ardent left-wingers like Paul Giamatti, Bill Pullman, Tony Shalhoub, and Ed Asner.

Then the story opens on James Woods playing Dick Fuld, Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers… an ardent Democrat and Obama supporter. James Woods stands out as the political maverick in the cast. In a recent interview with New York Magazine, Woods is quoted as saying, “I’ve always said that the next Obama slogan should be, ‘Barack Obama: Putting America Out of Business,’ because that’s what he’s doing.” So I decided to turn off my bias filter and give this story a chance.

As the story unfolded, I saw that the villains in this film weren’t the Republicans, rather it was a single villain… the total and complete financial collapse of our nation, or as Bernanke puts it, “[replaying] the depression of the 1930s. Only this time… far, far worse.” So, regardless of any one American’s political affiliation watching this film, total and complete financial collapse is an enemy we can all collectively desire to defeat.

The heroes, however, that’s a little more complicated. The actual heroes of the story are Republicans Henry Paulson (Secretary of the Treasury), Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve), and Independent Timothy Geithner (President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). They artfully maneuver their way through the minefield of economic collapse. Bear Stearns has already collapsed, Lehman Brothers is on the brink, Merrill Lynch next, and with all this going on, AIG – the safety net for all these creditors – was in the process of imploding from its own lack of liquidity and inability to meet its obligations. If AIG falls, all the banks fall. People would pull their money out of their banks and there would be no George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) trying to stop the “run on the bank” by convincing his depositors to take only what they need from his honeymoon stash. America, as we know it, would be in ruins.

Every maneuver in their quest to stabilize the markets is met with unpredictable reactions. Once they believe they’ve averted disaster, the pundits, investors, and citizens react differently than expected. It’s a reminder of Nobel winning economist F.A. Hayek’s precept that, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

But in the end, as we all know, it was capital injections in the form of a Troubled Asset Relied Plan (TARP) that would “save the day.” In short, the plan would see the U.S. government purchase assets and equity from all financial institutions, even if they didn’t need it, in order to stabilize and strengthen the financial sector. As Bernanke put it, the upside would be stabilizing banks faster, the downside would be nationalizing a few banks. Their plan to soften the blow was that they would force private banks to participate in this plan under law, but that the government would not have a voting interest or the ability to tell the banks how they use the money injected into their coffers… leaving the question to the viewer, “They will lend it out, won’t they?”

But, was TARP the right solution? If one believes it was, then the heroes of this story are without a doubt Republicans Paulson and Bernanke. But, if one believes it wasn’t the right solution, then the Republicans are just kicking the can down the road. Regardless, the story is a quest for a private solution, according to Paulson.

As Republican public relations guru Jim Wilkson (Topher Grace) says at one point, “You just can’t hand the banks massive piles of cash. Nobody’s going to go for it. To the Republicans, it’s nationalization. To the Democrats, it’s a bailout. And the banks are going to go ballistic.”

The story is well crafted and builds suspense out of the unexciting topics of finance and economics. There were parts that bothered me, like making the Republican Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, look like an immature boob, or Republican presidential candidate Senator McCain look like he is clueless on economic matters contrasted by Senator Obama’s grip on the subject, or simplistically blaming deregulation while omitting the fault of Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, or that derivatives and subprime loans were born during Clinton’s presidency, or more importantly that in 2006 Republicans pleaded with the Democratically-controlled Congress to begin taking measures by pulling the reigns back on Fannie and Freddie to mitigate the impending economic disaster.

Those criticisms, however, were offset by so many of the lines delivered by Topher Grace’s character, Jim Wilkson, who best resembled the attitudes and feelings of most Americans during this time. At one point, it is suggested that the government purchases up the toxic assets of the banks, to which he responds, “Ohhh, call it cash for trash,” he also calls nationalization “the N-word” and that it is un-American, and he suggests that the government running the banks would be like the government running the Post Office, which they “run like a dream.” Another character addresses the issue that the government having the ability to dictate compensation would be the biggest “brain drain this country has ever seen.” And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is characterized as something like the head of the Mafia. Her character comes across as an elitist snob, which I particularly enjoyed.

The movie was a surprise. Although it wasn’t 100 percent balanced, it was enough for this right-winger to actually enjoy it. And the filmmakers did a pretty decent job packing in a lot of characters and a lot of story into a short amount of time. If Obama-loving HBO can pull off the upcoming Sarah Palin story, Game Change, and the Dick Cheney movie, Angler, with the same deftness and fairness, I will be pleasantly surprised.  Better yet… I will be astonished.

Look at the leading men of today. When I saw Leonardo DiCaprio as a tough guy in Gangs of New York I wasn’t sure if it was a drama or a comedy. Matt Damon isn’t too bad but I‘m not convinced he could take a punch. I like Bill Pullman but he looks like he is always on the verge of breaking into tears. George Clooney, please my sister could throw him down and twist him up like a pretzel.

Here are my top five unrecognized real men of filmdom. I skipped the obvious choices like The Duke and Clint and went for some guys who are well known but not often looked at as Alpha dogs. Can you imagine any of these guys sitting in anything but a leather barber chair? Can you see any of them wondering if they should get frosted tips or a mani-pedi? Just being a tough guy wasn’t enough for my list they also had to have the craft of acting down too!

Even modern actors who seem to know their way around a good street fight like Vin Diesel and The Rock don’t have the acting chops that a lot of the classic tough guys did.  What’s that?  Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme? I like Chuck’s politics and Seagal’s new reality show has promise but please don’t waste my time trying to convince me that those guys wouldn’t wilt under the steely eyed stare of any of the five guys in my list. Hum… While you’re reading I’m stepping out for a burger. 

5. Richard Roundtree 

One word – Shaft! They say this cat is a bad mother….and he is! Richard is a New Yorker, football player and manly enough to beat a rare form of male breast cancer.

4. Lee Marvin  

One of my favorite all time movie bad guys is Liberty Valence. So much pure evil without a hint of any redeeming social value he could have been a Democrat. He served in World War Two and was wounded in the battle of Saipan. He would have been higher on my list but I have talked to a few people who knew him and he was apparently a pretty nasty guy in real life. They invented the word “palimony” for this guy.

3. Charles Bronson 

From The Magnificent Seven to his series of Death Wish films he was a man of few words. He hung in with wife Jill Ireland as she suffered through cancer. That’s a man!  

2, Edward G Robinson

The real OG! From being Little Caesar Rico to the evil Dathan and then slapping down a straight flush on fellow tough guy Steve McQueen in the Cincinnati Kid nobody was more the quintessential American tough guy than Eddie G.  Not bad for a Jewish kid from Romania!

1.  Denzel Washington  

The epitome of the modern strong silent type. Who else could play Malcolm X, the rogue cop in Training Day, a stoic naval officer and a tort lawyer and make them all sympathetic? I can’t wait to see the Book of Eli. My favorite Denzel tough guy line is when as Detective Keith Frazier in Inside Man he enters a restaurant and the maître d asked him, “May I have your hat?”  He comes back with, “No get your own!” Shades of Philip Marlow!

The play received quite positive reviews.  Here are some interesting things I read in the reviews…

In Elysa Gardner’s positive review in USA Today, she refers to the contrasting times in which the play is now produced versus the original production:

When David Mamet’s Oleanna premiered in 1992, it was widely perceived as a response to the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in which Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by former assistant Anita Hill.  It has been 18 years since that real-life drama played out. But as the very different controversy now surrounding David Letterman reminds us, the debate over what constitutes an abuse of power between a male authority figure and a female subordinate isn’t going away.

I find it interesting that the Hill/Thomas debate is compared to the Letterman story.  Was Clarence Thomas ever accused by Anita Hill of anything even remotely close to what Letterman has ADMITTED to?  I don’t think there is a debate about “what constitutes an abuse of power between a male authority figure and a female subordinate” with regard to Letterman, do you?  Does Letterman?  Does anyone?

Later, Gardner properly hits the nail on the head:

Mamet, after all, seems less interested in condemning women or men than exploring the complicated dynamics between them, made no simpler by such modern inventions as academic equality and political correctness.

Brava, Elysa.

Meanwhile, unlike Gardner, the NY Post’s Elisabeth Vincentelli doesn’t see ANY topical issues reflected in “Oleanna” and she uses the occasion of this play’s opening to put Mr. Mamet on the couch a la Sigmund Freud:

But watching the play 17 years later is like watching something made during the Red Scare of the ’50s. “Oleanna” speaks volumes not only about an era dominated by the shared paranoia of conservatives and lefty activists, but also about its creator’s id. And what surged from Mamet’s brain is the closest Broadway now has to a slasher movie.

In Ben Brantley’s all-powerful NY Times review, further mind reading of Mr. Mamet occurs: [emphasis added]

What’s so infernally ingenious about “Oleanna” is that as its characters vivisect what we have just witnessed, we become less and less sure of what we saw. Anyway, that’s what occurs in performance — or should.  Think about it afterward, or read the script, and you’ll realize that the sympathies of Mr. Mamet, a man’s man among playwrights, are definitely with John, however flawed he may be. It also becomes clear that Carol, as a character, is full of holes, most conspicuously in the way she uses words.

John Simon wisely avoids any direct criticism of Mr. Mamet (Mamet effectively castrated Simon in print last year thus rendering the critic incapable of objectively musing on the playwright’s talent), and he also differs with Ben Brantley’s suggestion that the play is skewered in the man’s direction:

The entire play is a clever enough piece of equivocation, allowing viewers to approve or reprehend either character according to their notions of feminism and sexism. The writing clearly and deliberately aims at provocation, at which it succeeds rather better than at credibility.

David Sheward in Backstage takes a different approach.  In honoring this production, he decides to slam the original, Mamet-directed version:

Under Mamet’s direction, Rebecca Pidgeon (the playwright’s wife) played the co-ed as a vacuous fool obviously manipulated by an offstage group of evil feminists into ruining the life of the nice-guy prof played by sweet, teddy-bearish W.H. Macy. Many saw the powerful one-act as a backlash against the excesses of political correctness and the women’s movement. In Doug Hughes’ reconsidered staging (now on Broadway after a run in Los Angeles), with a pair of powerhouse performances by Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman, the terms of combat are more equal and the outcome more ambiguous.

And over at Talkin’ Broadway, Matthew Murray is not a fan of this production at all, but unlike his counter-parts, he does not take this as an opportunity to personally slam, label or psycho-analyze the playwright.  On the contrary, he actually compliments him and the play:

The beautiful thing about Mamet’s incomparably incendiary play, however, is that it inspires fervent disagreement about which character represents what – stories of post-performance shouting matches and even fistfights have dogged the show for years.

But the prize for assault by play review has to go to David Rooney in Variety.  Here are a few choice quotes:

…Mamet stacks the deck too heavily in favor of the former to make the drama a fair contest — or to escape the charges of misogyny that have long dogged this play.

…Carol is possibly the most complex female role created by Mamet, a writer whose women are more often ciphers than believably fleshed-out characters.

…Hughes’ sleek production is psychologically needling and uncomfortable to watch in a way that surely honors Mamet’s intentions

…Designer Neil Patel amplifies the abrasive nature of the material

…But while Pullman makes John’s undoing a harrowing spectacle, the sheer acrimony of Mamet’s stance against Carol blunts the confrontation.

In case you’re having trouble reading the hidden message in Rooney’s review, let me help you out:  Mamet hates women. (He is a conservative, after all.)

More reviews are sure to trickle in as the week goes on, and If I find anything particularly obnoxious, I’ll bring them to your attention.  In the meantime, as the show is a limited engagement, do yourself a favor and see it if you are in New York.

Just as last season brought a record number of plays as well as stellar gross sales (despite doom-sayers in the industry) this season already looks locked and loaded with a huge number of shows scheduled to open between October 1st and the first week of May (the traditional Tony nomination cut-off).  So to help the readers of Big Hollywood plan their trip to the Great White Way (we can still say that, can’t we?), I submit the top 10 things to look for from the center/right perspective:

10.  ”Superior Donuts” – A transfer from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre (one of my personal favorite regional houses in America), the play stars “Spinal Tap”’s Michael McKean as an aging hippie who owns a donut shop in a largely black neighborhood and Jon Michael Hill (do all young Broadway actors HAVE to go by three names now?) as a 21-year-old from the neighborhood who talks his way into a job at the shop.  From the New York Times review:  ”In one of the play’s most amusing exchanges Franco challenges Arthur to name 10 black poets. Arthur names a few, then stands dumb, a look of deep concentration on his face. “It’s like watching George Bush on ‘Jeopardy!’ ” Franco cracks.”

9.  ”Hamlet” – Uber-UN activist Jude Law stars as the Danish prince in a Broadway transfer from London’s famed Donmar Warehouse theatre company.  His performance was almost universally praised by Fleet Street’s snarky critics.  This production has Hamlet delivering his “To be, or not to be” soliloquy in an on-stage snowfall.

8.  ”Bye, Bye, Birdie” – One of the first musicals to embrace pop music with a back-beat, “Bye, Bye, Birdie” will receive a revival at New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company.  It will star Gina Gershon, Dee Hoty, Bill Irwin and (wait for it….) John Stamos.  All I can say is this production has the potential to be fantastic, or to be a complete disaster… don’t expect anything in between.

7.  ”The Neil Simon Plays:  Brighton Beach Memoirs & Broadway Bound” – Revivals of two of the three plays which made up the Neil Simon “BB” trilogy will play in repertory this Fall (I’m guessing the middle play, “Biloxi Blues,” is omitted because Brighton Beach and Broadway Bound share the exact same set which is the Brighton Beach home of Simon’s alter-ego, Eugene, so it is much easier to play them in Rep.  Biloxi takes place in an Army barracks as it follow Eugene through basic training).  The revivals will star Laurie Metcalf.

6.  ”In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” – After having its world premiere at Berkley Rep., this play is transferring to Broadway via Lincoln Center Theatre.  The New York Times describes the play as:  “A fanciful but compassionate consideration of the treatment, and the mistreatment, of women in the late 19th century” and the show’s website calls it “a comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity.” Hmmm…  In the words of Forrest Gump:  ”And that’s all I have to say about that.”

5.  ”Race” – World Premiere of David Mamet’s newest play starring James Spader, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas.  When asked about details of the plot, producer Jefferey Richards said:  ”The title speaks for itself.”  Mamet, Spader and a play called “Race.”  Seriously, ENOUGH SAID!

4.  ”A Steady Rain” – Starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, this play is one of the most anticipated of the Fall.  A press report describes the Chicago premiere as: “A Steady Rain chronicles love and rage on the streets of Chicago as a domestic disturbance call sends two Chicago cops, friends since childhood, on a harrowing journey that will test their loyalties and change their lives forever.” But, as the NY Post succinctly said: “Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in police uniforms? All the boys will be there!”

3.  ”The Addams Family” – A musical adaptation of the famous, macabre characters starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwerth.  I am both embarrassed and proud that I am SO looking forward to this show!

2.  ”The Royal Family“  – George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s famous parody of the Barrymore family, this revival will star Rosemary Harris, Stephen Collins, John Glover, Tony Roberts, Jan Maxwell, Ana Gasteyer and Reg Rogers.  Its view of celebrity and privilege in the tunnel-vision perspective of an actor’s life resonates just as perfectly today as it did in 1927.  Really looking forward to see this cast play those characters (especially since I went to school with one of them!).

1.  ”Oleanna” – The Broadway premiere of Mamet’s 1992 Pulitzer-Prize winning play (it appeared off-Broadway at that time making this production it’s Broadway premiere).  When originally produced, this play was a compelling, challenging and electrifying reflection of the ground-breaking Clarence Thomas hearing that had split the nation the year before.  The 1992 production starring William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon was universally praised for its thought-provoking approach to the issue of sexual harassment and the use of rhetoric as a weapon in politically correct America.  None other than Frank Rich gave it one of his strongest endorsements as theatre critic of the New York Times.  But, a funny thing happened between 1992 and today, David Mamet famously proclaimed himself “No longer a brain-dead liberal.”  Will this breach of liberal dogma and orthodoxy in any way affect the theatre community’s once universal praise of “Oleanna”?  I know I will be looking very closely at how it is received by the critics as well as industry insiders.  This new revival premiered in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles.

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