A Really Bad Bank

We've heard quite a bit about bad banks lately, but here's a story that really puts the "bad" in bank.

In the new movie, The International, the focus of evil in the modern world is...you guessed it, a bank. 

The tagline: "They control your money. They control your government. They control your life. And everybody pays."

This movie will do for banking what The Da Vinci Code did for theology.

NPR takes a sober look at the movie and concludes it might be a good thriller, but it's a ridiculous smash-up of the business of banking. Listen to the story here.

I modestly suggest an immediate remake. Instead of a thriller, it should be a musical comedy entitled "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Bank."  

Tagline: "Something from everyone."

Here is the first song of the first act (with apologies to Stephen Sondheim):

"COMEDY TONIGHT!"

[BERNANKE]

Something familiar,

Something peculiar,

Something from everyone:

A comedy tonight!

Something appealing,

Something appalling,

Something from everyone:

A comedy tonight!

Nothing with kings, nothing with crowns;

Bring on the lovers, liars and clowns!

Old situations,

New complications,

Nothing portentous or polite;

Tragedy tomorrow,

Comedy tonight!

Something convulsive,

Something repulsive,

Something from everyone:

A comedy tonight!

Something aesthetic,

Something frenetic,

Something from everyone:

A comedy tonight!

Nothing with gods, nothing with fate;

Weighty affairs will just have to wait!

Nothing that's formal,

Nothing that's normal,

No recitations to recite;

Open up the curtain:

Comedy Tonight!

Something erratic,

Something dramatic,

Something from everyone:

A comedy tonight!

Frenzy and frolic,

Strictly symbolic,

Something from everyone:

A comedy tonight!

[CONGRESS]

Something familiar,

Something peculiar,

Something from everybody:

Comedy tonight!

Something that's gaudy,

Something that's haughty

[BERNANKE]

Something from everybody!

[ENTIRE CONGRESS]

Comedy tonight!

[THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]

Stunning surprises!

[THE WASHINGTON POST]

Cunning disguises!

[CONSPIRACY CHORUS]

Hundreds of actors out of sight!

[BARNEY FRANK]

Cupidity!

[NANCY PELOSI]

Timidity!

[BARNEY FRANK]

Mistakes!

[NANCY PELOSI]

Fakes!

[JESSE JACKSON]

Rhymes!

[BARNEY FRANK]

Crimes!

[THE NEW YORK TIMES]

Tumblers!

Grumblers!

Bumblers!

Fumblers!

[GEITNER]

No royal curse, no Trojan horse,

And a happy ending, of course!

Goodness and badness,

Panic is madness--

This time it all turns out all right!

Tragedy tomorrow,

Comedy tonight!

(For those who would like to experience the original, click here)