Synopsis
Maxed Out takes us on a journey deep inside the American debt-style, where everything seems okay as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time. Sure, most of us may have that sinking feeling that something isn't quite right, but we're told not to worry. After all, there's always more credit!
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Cast
- Beth NaefSelf
- Mike HudsonSelf
- Louis C.K.Self
- Richard ShelbySelf (archive footage)
- Chris DoddSelf (archive footage)
Recommendations
- 100
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Absorbing, scary documentary. - 80
Salon
Another strong journalistic-style film, this one exposes how unbelievably rapacious the financial industries have become in extending credit to unlikely prospects -- among them college students, nursing-home residents, small children, dogs and dead people. - 80
Variety
Intelligent, informative and unusually entertaining documentary errs only when it yanks too insistently on heartstrings while focusing on worst-case scenarios involving desperate debtors driven to suicide. - 80
New York Magazine (Vulture)
James Scurlock's documentary Maxed Out, tells the bone-chilling, bloodcurdling, hair-raising story of a country (guess which one?) that's up to its eyeballs in credit-card debt. - 80
Washington Post
A riveting, amusing, enlightening and emotionally affecting movie by a guy you've never heard of, about -- wait for it -- the consumer debt crisis. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Scurlock does well to counter the more dire aspects of the film with a razor-sharp sense of humor. - 75
Christian Science Monitor
Scurlock's filmmaking style leans more heavily on woebegone personal testimony than facts and figures, but politicians willing to go up against the credit industry's lobbyists would be well advised to take a look. - 70
Film Threat
At a time when our debt as individuals and as a nation is at an all-time high, Maxed Out offers a much needed look at this escalating dilemma.
