Delayed Reaction: Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

The Pitch: Is it possible to make someone root for a bank?

A documentary about the only bank that the government prosecuted after the 2008 market crash: a small community bank run by and catering to Chinese Americans.

One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is how lazy the villainizing of banks and corporations is. Some of that, I'm sure, comes from the fact that I'm on the upper end of being pro-capitalism (although banking and the corporate structure in the US abandoned a lot of capitalist principals a long time ago. That's a rant for another day). More of my irritation comes from the fact that the way these things are villainized is really boring. It's like making a bad guy in a violent movie a neo-Nazi or KKK member so the movie can excuse the hero killing someone. It's lazy targeting.

That's what made this documentary, sympathizing with a bank, so interesting. This film fucks with all of our sympathies by adding a lot of layers.

It's about a bank that made fraudulent loans.

It's about a big company (the government) going after the little guy.

It's about ethnic prejudices in how the law is enforced.

I'm pretty sure the the majority of the people who watch this will be surprised when they stop to think about who they are rooting for by the end. I know I was.

Director Steve James mostly stays out of the way throughout and let the film be about the family who runs Abacus. He keeps the film focused on them and the events of the indictment, only zooming out to give context when needed. He hits a few points a little strong but leaves a lot to the audience to put together, which I appreciated.

Perhaps my biggest documentary pet peeve is when I feel like parts of the story are being left out so that a certain conclusion can be reached. Blackfish is my favorite example of that. Making a Murder was guilty of it too. I had inklings of this in Abacus. I feel like certain elements of the fraud the bank was being charged with weren't given as critical an eye as they deserved. My best guess is that people are already inclined to not trust banks, so the filmmakers were afraid that going at Abacus too hard would lose the audience's sympathy. If that was the reasoning, I have to say, it was a smart calculation.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend