• Home
  • News
  • Top Picks
    • Movies & Films: Top 25
    • Documentaries: Top 25
    • Films For Students: Top 10
    • Music Videos: Top 10
  • Categories
    • Film
    • Documentary
    • Shorts
    • Blog
    • Calendar
    • Links
    • About

Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World

Libertarian Movies, Films & Documentaries

Other People’s Money (1991)

Tagged: Anti-socialism, Creator as hero, Pro-capitalism

Market forces, in the form of brusque Wall Street tycoon Larry the Liquidator, see to it that shareholder interests are protected despite the opposition of old-fashioned management. [ Other People’s Money credits: Dir: Norman Jewison/ Danny DeVito, Gregory Peck, Penelope Ann Miller/ 101 min/ Drama, Comedy/ Pro-Capitalism, Anti-Redistribution, Creator as Hero]

“Other People’s Money is a generally well paced, appealing film that dramatizes the necessity and even the justice of change.”

“This business is dead. Let’s have the intelligence, let’s have the decency, to sign the death certificate, collect the insurance, and invest in something with a future. Ah, but we can’t, [says the opposition]. We can’t because we have a responsibility to our employees, to our community. What will happen to them? I got two words for that: Who cares? … Take the money. Invest it somewhere else. Maybe, maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll be used productively. And if it is, you’ll create new jobs and provide a service for the economy, and God forbid, even make a few bucks for yourselves.” So says Larry the Liquidator, in an appeal to the shareholders of a money-losing company he’s trying to buy.

His speech follows that of the company CEO, who makes an equally forceful appeal to the shareholders to resist the company’s sale. And that is what makes this film on the subject of hostile takeovers so effective: it’s evenhanded. It’s sympathetic to management and employees, but makes the critical point, almost unheard of in other films on this subject, that the money spent to support management and employees in a money-losing business is “other people’s money.”

Larry the Liquidator is raunchy and abrasive but highly moral when it comes to the interests of shareholders. He wins control of the company in the end, and happily the change that he brings about turns out to be in everyone’s interest anyway.

Danny DeVito, as Larry the Liquidator, is New York City itself: bright, funny, energetic, but at times gratuitously crude, which some may find annoying after awhile. In other respects, Other People’s Money is a generally well paced, appealing film that dramatizes the necessity and even the justice of change.

External Reviews

“Other People’s Money is a four-star movie that loses its way in the last, crucial scene, and for that it loses half a star.”
–Roger Ebert

How to See It

Amazon (DVD)
Amazon (Instant Video)
Online Video Search

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Related Film: Greed

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Featured Post

Emperor of Hemp (1999)

The story of Jack Herer’s efforts to expose the truth about the beneficial qualities of the hemp plant, and to re-legalize its production and use. [ Emperor of Hemp credits: Dir: Jeff Jones/ 59 min/ Documentary-Educational, Biography/ Legalize Drugs] Note: the full documentary can typically be found online … Continue Reading

All the King’s Men (1949)

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER: BEST PICTURE A political reformer, hungry for power to do “good,” becomes thoroughly corrupt on his way to the top. [ All the King's Men credits: Dir: Robert Rossen/Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge/ 109 min/ Drama/ Power Corrupts, Corrupt Government] “All the … Continue Reading

Keeper of the Flame (1942)

A reporter writing the biography of a dead national hero gets a lesson in the nature of political power. [ Keeper of the Flame credits: Dir: George Cukor/ Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Richard Whorf/ 100 min/ Drama/ Power Corrupts, Power Worship] “In many ways Keeper of the Flame is a classic mystery … Continue Reading

Themes

Abuse of power American revolution Anti-draft Anti-regulation Anti-slavery Anti-socialism Anti-taxation Anti-war Ayn Rand Corrupt government Creator as hero Democide Econ 101 Eminent domain Equality & law Escape from socialism Freedom of speech Free press as hero Government as bigot Government as torturer Government enforced morality Government healthcare Government schools Incompetent government Individualism John Stossel Law & liberty Legalize Drugs Libertarian heroes Libertarianism 101 Power corrupts Power worship Pro-capitalism Pro-immigration Propaganda Psychiatric coercion Resistance to tyranny Right to secede Search & seizure Second amendment Sexual liberty Social tolerance Unions & monopolies Voluntarism Working for government

Genres/Categories

Action-Adventure Animated Biography Blog Comedy Documentary Drama Family Featured Film Foreign History Horror Music-Dance Netflix News Romance SciFi-Fantasy Shorts Thriller Upcoming Western

About Miss Liberty

This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.

  • RSS

© 2023 Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World. All Rights Reserved