I.O.U.S.A.
by Patrick Creadon
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bob Bixby (Concord Coalition), David Walker (Peter G. Peterson Foundation)Director: Patrick Creadon
Brand: PBS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 80 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-04-07
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: PBS (DIRECT)
Movie Reviews of I.O.U.S.A.
Movie Review: I can't wait for the sequel
Summary: 5 Stars
When the closing credits of the documentary I.O.U.S.A. roll, one may think, "Everybody needs to see this film before it's too late to save America from its debt." Not only that, Americans must urge the White House and Congress to screen I.O.U.S.A. - and pass the tax increases (return income tax to what it was before 1981) and spending cuts (sorry, wasteful military expenditures) necessary to restore America's credit.
As I write this in 2009, the third consecutive decade of United States' declining standard of living closes. Just as the American government refuses to acknowledge such reality - claiming annual inflation of a fictitious 3%, for example - I.O.U.S.A. reminds us our elected officials turn blind eyes and deaf ears to the growing national debt. It is no coincidence that starting with the 1989 film ROGER AND ME, Americans have taken to documentaries identifying such elephants in the room. ROGER AND ME, which called out corporate America for laying off employees despite increasing profits, came at the end of the anti-labor Reagan/Bush 1980s. American companies were no longer sharing the wealth with the people working for them, so audiences responded to ROGER AND ME. SUPER SIZE ME did the same for fattening restaurant food forced on Americans, as did AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH for global warming and SICKO for our healthcare emergency. Yet I.O.U.S.A. came and went quietly, as if the resistance to the reality of this country's financial crisis stifled the documentary's publicity and resulting audience. Here's hoping its D.V.D. release finds the viewers that missed it in the theaters.
An I.O.U.S.A. theme depicts person-on-the-street interviews where Americans don't know the answers to questions such as "How does the government borrow money?" The film demonstrates why more individuals don't have such information, showing a citizen's group protest against the trillions America owes receiving no coverage on the local television station's evening news. It is not as though the editors spiked the story because something else important happened that day, because we see the broadcast leads with an account of some asinine event.
One of the most impressive aspects of I.O.U.S.A. is how entertaining it makes the topic of economics. Money matters can intimidate or bore many, but perhaps because of his work for television's fast-paced M.T.V. and E.S.P.N. channels, director Patrick Creadon knows how to turn a bunch of numbers into the engrossing, action-packed viewing experience that is I.O.U.S.A..
See I.O.U.S.A. - and respond to the documentary's call to action. Otherwise, you may see the sequel in Chinese.
One last thing. Billionaire anti-Social Security activist Peter G. Peterson has a hand in the making of I.O.U.S.A., but please don't hold that against the documentary. I.O.U.S.A. is not so heavy-handed as to tell people America must end Social Security in order to get out of debt. The invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the George W. Bush tax cuts, not Social Security, are the reasons for the trillions America owes.
Summary of I.O.U.S.A.
America is on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States. Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.Over 125 minutes of bonus materials, including exclusive interviews with Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan and others.
As the average American can attest, personal debt is bad enough, but as Thomas Jefferson once cautioned, public debt is "corruptive of the government" and "demoralizing of the nation." Patrick Creadon's I.O.U.S.A. documents the efforts of two concerned citizens, former US Comptroller General Dave Walker and Concord Coalition Director Robert Bixby, to explain how America racked up over $9.5 trillion in debt and what we can do to stem the tide. Based on the book Empire of Debt by William Bonner and Executive Producer Addison Wiggin, Wordplay's Creadon combines Walker and Bixby's "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour" with observations from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Paul O?Neill, superstar CEO Warren Buffett, and student activists. The information flows with ease and the clips from Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show add levity to an undeniably dark and timely topic, but the narrative rests on a long list of facts and figures, leading to a production that feels more like a special news report than a work of cinema. Unlike Alex Gibney's Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, on which co-writer/producer Christine O'Malley (Creadon's wife) assisted, character development takes a backseat to data. Arguably, the director lacks an outsized personality, like Enron's Kenneth Lay, around which to assemble his argument, but the subject calls for more of a human face to have the desired effect, i.e. to encourage beleaguered taxpayers to care enough to rise up off their easychairs and agitate for greater fiscal responsibility. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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