Maxed Out

Documentary filmmaker James D. Scurlock (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) turns his attention to a nation awash in credit card and mortgage debt in Maxed Out, which looks at the dark underbelly of the lending industry, presenting case studies of ordinary folk robbed of their homes by unscrupulous institutions and college students driven to suicide, in part by companies luring them to overspend on credit (and thereby become virtual slaves to interest payments). The dirty little secret, according to Scurlock, is that banks, mortgage firms, and corporate lenders target those least likely to be able to afford even minimum monthly payments because those are the very souls the institutions can keep in thrall forever by ratcheting up interest rates to astronomical levels. Maxed Out features interviews with homeowners put into hock by false promises and a variety of other debtors, as well as small-timers in the debt-collecting business, journalists, university economics professors, and radio talk-show host Dave Ramsey. A solid, informative piece of investigative reporting on a wide range of socioeconomic issues related to personal finance, this is recommended. (F. Swietek)