Giving Him The Business

I recently read Jerry Sterner's Other People's Money, a play written about 20 years ago. (It was made into a faithful but not very good movie in 1991.) Larry "The Liquidator" Garfinkle wants to take over an old wire and cable company. He thinks it's undervalued and, if he takes control, will sell off its assets.

The play has five characters and a lot of snappy dialogue. What's surprising is it doesn't take sides. It's common for a dramatic work to set up the two sides in a takeover as a good and a bad one. In OPM, all the characters have reasons for what they do, and all have blind spots.

The filmmakers who create movies about how greedy and corrupt business is are the same ones who will hire a lawyer to demand they get paid as much as possible--often far more than most Americans make in a lifetime. Maybe the reason OPM is a bit more even-handed is that playwright Sterner started out as a businessman.