FREEFALL

Director:  Dominic Savage

Year of Release:  2009

Freefall is a grim look at the financial crash of 2008 (which led to a world recession), and how it affected the bankers, unscrupulous lenders, and the ordinary people who were swept up by the promise of a lifestyle they knew they could not afford. 

Aidan plays Gus, a city banker, who is divorced and has a daughter with whom he spends little time, due to the fact that he is a workaholic who lives for the thrill of closing the deal.  I must admit a majority of the ‘banking talk’ went over my head, and little of it is clearly explained. I guess you don’t need to know much except that the world of banking is at a precipice where all the ‘bad’ lending, to people who cannot afford the repayments, is bound to lead to an eventual financial collapse.

The film focuses on an unscrupulous mortgage lender, Dave Matthews (played by Dominic Cooper) and Jim Potter, Dave’s old school friend to whom he sells a ‘discounted mortgage’. Dave neglects to tell Jim that the repayments on the mortgage can increase dramatically after a year and this has tragic consequences. A situation that no doubt, sadly, reflected the true situation many people found themselves in at the time.

I find Freefall very cold, I struggle to empathise with any of the characters, but perhaps that is the point, if it is a moral tale then, in my opinion the ending should be different.  Jim is the one you should be rooting for, but it is greed that gets him into debt, and his wife just goes along with it. You want to shake the pair of them and say, “What the hell are you doing!!” as they sign the mortgage papers.

Aidan has little to work with here, he is only ever seen in and around his office, or in restaurants on the, obviously rare, occasions he sees his daughter.  But he is still able to convey the character’s frustration as the markets collapse, and the pain of seeing his life unravel in front of him. Whilst I said there is no character you empathise with, I guess with Gus you can feel his pain, even though it is self-inflicted. But that is down to Aidan adding some humanity to the role. For us Aidan fans there are some heart-breaking scenes, and more cocaine, a staple for all of Aidan’s ‘troubled’ characters.

A TV movie made by the BBC, the running time is short and the budget seems to be small, with most scenes taking place in locations ranging from a London city office block (with great views of the capital) to a council housing estate.  You are hit over the head with the moral message – greed is bad – but nevertheless it holds your interest from start to tragic finish, for which you may need some tissues at the ready! A nice bonus for Game of Thrones fans, Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy) appears as, Ian, a more morally grounded colleague of Dave Matthews.