Debt & Death Double Feature

Maxed Out
M'House
DVD
1/16/08

3:10 to Yuma
M'House
DVD
1/17/08

In Debt We Trust (most of it)
M'House
DVD
1/19/08

So this guy I work with was quoting the Louis CK bit that shows up in Maxed Out, this documentary about credit card debt, so we moved it up on our Netflix queue and watched it this week. It starts out with this real estate agent in Las Vegas, driving past planned community after planned community, talking about how there's a famous place in Italy called Seven Hills and how one community is called "Seven Hills" after it and all of the streets have Italian names.

She's right. There is a famous place in Italy with seven hills. It's called Rome.

So initially I though that this was going to be like The Office. Wince-inducing, but funny.

And then we get to the first suicide story. And then the second and third. Maxed Out may be the most depressing thing I've ever seen that I can think of at the moment. I am no longer in credit card debt, and when I was, it wasn't anywhere near the levels that the people in here got to, but it still wasn't a good thing. Sure, this doc is biased and there is a certain aspect of personal responsibility involved with racking up thousands of dollars of debt, but the insidious nature of a business that refuses to do away with high-risk customers because "that's where our money comes from" has to be accountable for something.

It's a very-off putting film and once we get about fifteen minutes into it the shadow of death hangs over the rest of of the picture and doesn't go away even when it gets into the closing credits. I think anyone with a credit card should watch it, but I wouldn't recommend watching it on a weekend.

The strange thing is, if I had not watched Maxed Out on Wednesday, I probably would have had a completely different take on 3:10 to Yuma when I watched it on Thursday. It's also about debt and the desperate actions that someone will resort to in order to pay it off. Granted, it's set in the 1800s and nobody had credit cards at the time. Not even Diner's Club.

The story is simple, Dan Evans (Christian Bale) takes on the job to escort captured outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to a prison train. It's basically a suicide mission, because Wade's gang is out to spring him, and will kill anybody who gets in the way, or even just for the hell of it.

I want to make note of Ben Foster, who plays Wade's second-in command. The guy plays good crazy and I spent most of the movie trying to figure out where I'd seen him before. Turns out it was on My Name is Earl, and he was good scary-crazy on that too.

I was going to see 3:10 to Yuma in the theater, but I was only going to go to a show that started at 3:10. Not a single theater in the DC area had a 3:10 show. There were 3:00s, 3:15s, even a 3:05, but not a single freakin' theater was clever enough to schedule a 3:10 show. So I waited til video because I am a snot.

It's actually a pretty good movie. I've never really liked anything I've seen that was directed by James Mangold. I thought Cop Land and Walk the Line were average and I actively hated Identity. Haven't seen any others. But 3:10 to Yuma's good. It's a classically generic story and well-cast and a decently entertaining two hours. I don't know if it's the best western since Unforgiven, but I can't really remember any since Unforgiven, so it may well be. Unless you count No Country for Old Men as a western, which it is.

Now if they actually do justice to Blood Meridian, that will be something to see.

-Post Script-

We tried to watch In Debt we Trust last night, another credit card documentary. Don't waste your time. It's sloppy and amateurish and annoying to the point where we just couldn't take it anymore and ejected the disc before it was even over.