Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders
Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders Image
Metascore
65 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critics What's this?

User Score
5.2 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 6 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
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  • Summary: Maxed Out takes viewers on a journey deep inside the American style of debt, where things seem fine as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time. With coverage that spans from small American towns all the way to the White House, the film shows how the modern financial industry really works, explains the true definition of "preferred customer" and tells us why the poor are getting poorer while the rich keep getting richer. Hilarious, shocking and incisive, Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us. (Red Envelope Entertainment)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 20
  3. Negative: 2 out of 20
  1. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    100
    Absorbing, scary documentary.
  2. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    80
    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.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    50
    While the documentary does a credible job of pointing out the magnitude of the problem, it skirts the issue of what can be done about it and by whom.
  4. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Nathan Lee
    30
    A slapdash piece of work totally indebted to second-hand rhetorical strategies.

See all 20 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 1 out of 3
  1. JackD.
    10
    Very, very insightful, revealing documentary about the credit industry in the US. A must see for anyone.
  2. SteveS.
    8
    Earth to the American public - if you keep on electing survival-of-the-fittest Republicans, don't be surprised when large swaths of your society turn Darwinian without prior notice. Yes, it would be really nice if everybody lived within their means; but as the movie makes clear, the credit card companies are now actively seducing the poorest credit risks, because their highest profits come from soaking marginal customers with late fees. Such dubious and predatory strategies have addicted our economy to the self-delusions of American consumers. If people did start being more responsible with their credit cards, it would be the end of our standard of living. Nor is the US government any more prepared to face reality than the American people are. It just has the power to raise the ceiling on its debt, a luxury private citizens lack. The movie is smart, ironic and funny. You come away from it with the strong intuition that the more credit card applications you get in the mail, the more insulted you should feel, because the modern lender strategy is to rope in as many losers as possible. It would also have been fitting to end it with the same portentious message Criswell intoned at the finale of Plan 9 From Outer Space - "God help us in the future!"… Expand
  3. BrettS
    2
    Too biased of a documentary to deserve a good score. It only shows half of the problem, that lenders need to tighten lending standards. The problem that Americans want to buy whatever they want whenever they want, but when it comes time to pay what they owe they don't want to is only briefly skirted. NY Post reviewer says it best: The film takes care to hide almost everything its overspenders bought, but toward the end a weeping woman takes us through the sanctum where, until indebtedness suddenly struck, she once kept her 500 souvenir plates. Hiding half of the problem does not a good documentary make.… Expand

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