Freefall

With some talented names involved and a very interesting subject matter, 'Freefall' had the potential from the get go to be good. Luckily for 'Freefall', although there are a few flaws, it handles the story intriguingly and was clearly made with accomplishment and passion.

Starting with 'Freefall's' flaws, a couple of the dialogue exchanges lack nuance and rather have the subtlety of an axe and also sounding on the awkward side, the exchange between Dave and Sam did have me cringing a bit. It's also short on character development, the characters are certainly interesting, and judging from personal experience the portrayals of bankers and mortgage salespeople is reasonably accurate (no sugar-coating here), but very black and white making the drama in places a touch too on the grim side, the writing of Aidan Gillen's character Gus particularly. 'Freefall' is very well acted on the whole, but there is one exception and that is Sarah Harding as Sam, over-acting so irritatingly that it's a relief that her appearance here is brief.

'Freefall' has however many strengths. With the stylish editing, austere but atmospheric colours that go perfectly with the tone of the drama and the documentary-style camera work, 'Freefall' is very well-made. The music really adds to the emotional impact and intensity, and never felt over-bearing, obtrusive, annoying, one-note or out-of-kilter. Apart from a couple of unsubtle exchanges, the script is very astute, thought-provoking and refreshingly realistic for a one-off drama taking on a social-commentary/documentary-style approach, remarkable for a drama that apparently was ad-libbed a lot of the time.

The story is very absorbing and zips along very assuredly thanks to the atmosphere and Dominic Savage's focused direction. While not the most informative of drama content-wise, it is delivered very insightfully. The characters, while not particularly well-developed, are interesting, with Dave being the most compelling and Jim and Mandy being the ones that a tinge of empathy is felt for. With the sole exception of Harding, the cast are very good to wonderful, with swaggering Dominic Cooper, cautious Anna Maxwell Martin and particularly vulnerable Joseph Mawle faring especially strongly. Aidan Gillen has a great brooding intensity too and Rosamund Pike is charming and poised.

All in all, not perfect but very intriguing and well-made. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Heavily pre-billed in the press, Freefall deals with the credit crisis and related matters as seen through the eyes of three disparate men: a smarmy mortgage salesman who sells anyone he is able to down the river, a client of his and incidentally a former schoolfriend who is suckered into taking out a mortgage he can't afford, and a high-powered and utterly soulless banker involved in the dubious business of repackaging debt which was at the core of the problem. Needless to say, the mortgage salesman and the banker are scum and the mortgage defaultee, a family man with two young children is merely 'aspirational'. He is sold the idea of owning a home of his own and, unfortunately and against his wife's better judgment and counsel, follows his heart rather than his head. That, in a nutshell, is it. As we all know, the whole collateralisation scam of repackaging debt, including so-called sup-prime mortgages, ended very badly, so there is, not surprisingly, not much suspense involved in watching Freefall. It is all filmed in that hand-held, guerrilla type of filming which is usually effective in adding a certain drama to otherwise rather mundane scenes — and, it has to be said, often spurious drama — and at times the dialogue seems to be ad libbed, although whether of not it was I can't say. The problem with Freefall is that there is less to it than meets the eye. It is an apparently worthy exercise but it chooses to pass on its message with no subtlety whatsoever. In some ways Freefall is rather like reading an evangelical tract, and that is a shame. At the end of the day, it is all sound and fury signifying a great deal less than it would seem to want to. It is like watching a cartoon and, indeed, the story, or what there is, would work well in graphic form. The characters, for all the emotion of the sad wife who goes along with her husband's dreams and the pitiful spectacle of the banker realising there is nothing to his life except his work, are flat and remain unresolved. A slight attempt is made to flesh out the mortgage salesman at the end of Freefall when he is shown moving on from flogging mortgages to drumming up investment of 'green initiatives', but it is a slight coda and far to slight to redeem Freefall's lack of depth. There's nothing wrong with Freefall and as a piece of TV drama is isn't half bad. The problem is that neither is it as good or as significant as it seems to think it is. Two cheers for effort.

I thought this was a terrific BBC drama.

I have always been a fan of TV drama such as Cracker and prime suspect. I have always felt that the BBC is definitely the strongest Channel on Television with more recent classic dramas such as the amazing State of play, Criminal Justice and The Street.

Freefall was just as good. It had one of the best scripts I've seen in a long time, it was shot very un-stylised and honest which really highlighted the story. The acting too was incredible. The score in Freefall was also very well written and really served the piece well.

I watched Dominic Savage's excellent Out of Control in 2002, and that too was very gritty and thought provoking.

As someone who is trying to enter the film making industry, it is great to see that the BBC are triumphing were so many others are failing.

I now eagerly wait for Dominic savages Dive which is out this year.

Keep up the good work

This film, about the 2008 financial crisis, tells its story through three main characters: Gus, the insipid banker who bundles mortgages into tradable assets - Dave, the subprime mortgage salesman who preys on impoverished families - and Jim, the hardworking security guard who falls prey to Jim's scheming. The thread connecting them gradually untangles, as the crisis unfolds in a cacophony of sound and fury.

Something that immediately strikes me about the movie is the way it depicts bankers. I personally know bankers, and they are exactly as this movie suggests: shallow, unfeeling sods with bizarre priorities. Indeed, I once knew a person exactly like Rosamund Pike's character - nuff said. See the movie.

The acting is outstanding, particularly by Dominic Cooper, Joseph Mawle, and Anna Maxwell Martin. Aidan Gillen and Rosamund Pike were inconsistent at best, but that is to be expected.

At the end, this is one of those movies that leaves you with much to think about, and - if you are like me - broiling with anger against the financial industry that made this crisis possible. In sum, this is the best movie about the financial crisis made thus far. Do yourself a favour, and go rent it.