[dropcap style="font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;"] M [/dropcap] y hats off to Aaron Sorkin (a fellow Cornellian I recently met) for writing a great book about our worst year ever. It needed to be chronicled and Too Big To Fail did that admirably as a book. Hats off too to the casting director of Too Big To Fail the TV Movie for lining up the characters with big-name stars as well as they did. James Wood as Dick Fuld was brilliant with a just a touch of shoe polish to get that dark hair black enough. Hurt as Paulson hurt so bad in its realism of his “I’m in charge…but don’t hate me…I just hope I don’t screw up” best. But Giamotti at Bernanke! Who knew Paul could get a Ben beard going and play the calm intellect of the Great Depression so well. I even liked Cruddup as Geitner and the actors to fill in for Flowers and Blankfein (clearly chosen for looks). Bill Pullman as Jamie Dimon was a good look-alike, but no one can match Dimon’s sad eyes and “above-it-all” detachment that only a guy who sailed through the fiasco BETTER OFF than he started could do it.

Too Big To Fail is a wonderful historical and accurate dramatic portrayal of what we can only really imagine happened that weekend down on Maiden Lane. I’ve seen enough of the real deal to say without equivocation that this was as realistic as it comes and it is frightening in just how unglued our “Best and Brightest” were at that once-in-a-career moment of truth. See it. See it twice. See it three times and try to never forget how close we all came to oblivion.