Blood Debt: The Final Payment

Among documentary offerings at this year's Sundance Film Festival is Patrick Creadon's new film, I.O.U.S.A. about the United States national debt. The film, which Reuters reporter Mary Milliken said "may not be the sexiest film" at Sundance, nonetheless has a chance to "be to the U.S. economy what 'An Inconvenient Truth' was to the environment" (just like Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark was to semitic relics what Back to the Future III was to time travel, right?).

But this is my favorite part of the article:

DEBT CAN BE FUNNY?

It also brings in leading economic figures like billionaire investor Warren Buffett and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to sound their warnings, and it creates some comic moments with clips from comedian Steve Martin.

While making the film in 2006, Creadon and his team had to deal with the rapid deterioration of the U.S. economy as the subprime mortgage lending crisis hit major banks and sent home foreclosure rates soaring.

As a result, many of the documentary's doomsday scenarios, which had been discussed in future tense, were actually happening as they edited the movie.

Subprime mortgage crisis? Doomsday scenarios? Yes, debt can be funny!

My real gripe with this article is that I think Milliken is wrong to insinuate that debt isn't sexy enough. Frankly, I think this movie would be much better as an action-thriller than as documentary . . .

Jack Bauer was the FBI's most skilled agent. But no amount of fanatical terrorism could have prepared him for the ultimate foe. With government spending at an all time high thanks to the limited skirmish in the Gulf, Bauer must race against the national debt before it spirals out of control. Meanwhile, a pack of Chinese government agents attempts to stop him from financing the debt so China can maintain its stranglehold on U.S. monetary instruments. It will take all his guile -- and Quickbooks -- to open up a massive can of fiscal responsibility.

This fall, see Kiefer Sutherland in 24 Trillion: "My name is Jack Bauer and this is the largest debt of my life."