History YMMV / TooBigToFail

* AdaptationalVillainy: Dick Fuld is easily the least sympathetic character in the story, and the viewer might conclude that he preferred to let Lehman Brothers collapse rather than cede his control of it, or else that he was happy to let it fall as long as he could secure his own golden parachute. However, the book emphasizes that Fuld worked for Lehman for over forty years, and earnestly wanted to save a company he truly loved; it was just his misfortune that his decisions were disastrously ill-informed.

* AcceptableTargets: During the ongoing debate over how to solve the financial crisis, Jim Wilkinson asks whether the U.S. government plans to nationalize AIG (an international MegaCorp) and run it like it runs the Post Office - "[[SarcasmMode 'cause, you know, that works great!]]"

** He later tells his staff that there is no punishment he can give to the banks without them potentially refusing TARP and making the crisis worse. It is clear that he understands that the whole mess is the fault of the banks, but he has no choice, but to let them dictate the terms.
* WhatAnIdiot: Hooooo boy, Dick Fuld!
** His first idiotic move is to refuse a pretty good asking price from Warren Buffett, not realizing that his company stock is in a tailspin.
** His next blunder is to waltz in on a delicate negotiation underway between his COO and a group of Korean investors. The COO had carefully negotiated a deal in which the Koreans would only buy Lehman's good assets, with the bad real estate assets being spun off into a shell company and liquidated separately. Fuld comes in and tries to convince the Koreans to buy his real estate assets too, undoing all the work his COO had done. Understandably, the Koreans are furious and walk out.
** Bank of America comes sniffing around. They are not quite interested, but still show up. Fuld never tries to ease their concerns and "sell" his bank's worth. Instead he just sits there and grumbles about Paulson not giving Lehman a bailout like Bear Sterns got.
** However, the truly colossal level of idiocy was displayed by AIG. They agreed to insure a monumental amount [[note]] All subprime mortgages issued by half the world's banks [[/note]] of risky subprime loans, just so the fees and premiums keep coming in. Unlike Lehman whose damage from collapse was containable, AIG would have taken down the entire financial system with them.

* TearJerker: When Paulson tells his wife that Lehman is gone, and that he doesn't know what will happen. He later openly tells her about the fact that people could riot to get food if the financial system collapses in a hushed worried tone.

* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: William Hurt's performance as Hank Paulson was widely acclaimed, as many noted Hurt portrayed Paulson as a man who is deeply stressed by the threat of financial apocalypse, and has to go along with measures he strongly dislikes, but has to employ because there is no other choice.

* SugarWikiHeReallyCanAct: William Hurt's performance as Hank Paulson was widely acclaimed, as many noted Hurt portrayed Paulson as a man who is deeply stressed by the threat of financial apocalypse, and has to go along with measures he strongly dislikes, but has to employ because there is no other choice.

* HeReallyCanAct: William Hurt's performance as Hank Paulson was widely acclaimed, as many noted Hurt portrayed Paulson as a man who is deeply stressed by the threat of financial apocalypse, and has to go along with measures he strongly dislikes, but has to employ because there is no other choice.

* HarsherInHindsight: A few characters in the movie spiraled down badly after the events shown here.
** Erin Callan Lehman Brothers' CFO, who "all of Wall Street thinks she is a joke", did not take her termination well. She spiraled down into depression, divorce and suicidal ideation, before moving to the Hamptons and reconnecting with an old high school classmate helped pull her out of it.

*** Immelt's comments about Main Street suffering from the effects of the crisis also becomes harsher given that while the economy did recover after the crash, the jobs that were available never returned and causing Main Street's pay to enter a slump.

** The comments citing the political and public reaction become much harder to look at in the present
*** Wilkerson's comment that bailing out AIG will send the country crazy gets a lot more difficult thanks to the rise of Occupy Wall Street

** His first idiotic move is to refuse a pretty good asking price from Warren Buffet, not realizing that his company stock is in a tailspin.

* CriticalResearchFailure: Warren Buffet is not the world's richest man, as Microsoft founder Bill Gates is richer than him.

* Tearjerker: When Paulson tells his wife that Lehman is gone, and that he doesn't know what will happen. He later openly tells her about the fact that people could riot to get food if the financial system collapses in a hushed worried tone.

** Paulson's praising of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is difficult to watch, considering the London Whale LIBOR trading scandal of 2012.
** GE CEO Jeff Immelt complaining about how lack of credit is hurting his chances to run routine daily operations, and Paulson's comment on how the crisis is spreading to Main Street comes of harsher, due to the government needing to bail out two automobile makers GM and Chrysler because they too had become [[ArcWords too big to fail]].