![]() There are also extended interviews with the attorneys on both sides, including Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. Some of the best scenes from the film are around the dinner table when the father, Thomas Sung, who started the bank, talks trial strategy with his wife Hwei Lin Sung, and their three daughters Jill, Vera, and Chanterelle Sung, all of whom work for the bank in some capacity. The film does a great job showing what it’s like to be under the great weight of the State when it makes false allegations against you. The documentary has incredible access to the family in real time as the trial takes place. ![]() Yet this tight-knit, courageous family fights back to set the record straight for themselves and the Chinese-American community. As the film’s title indicates, unlike the high-powered big banks of Wall Street, this community bank appears to be “small enough to jail” for its purported role in the 2008 financial crisis. The film centers on how the Sungs, a Chinese-American immigrant family who runs a storied community bank in New York’s Chinatown (Abacus Federal Savings Bank), became the target of an overzealous prosecution by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. It is high in suspense, surprisingly funny, and has a certain charm to it despite the outrageous legal case that it depicts. “Abacus” is probably the only film made in the past decade that could get an audience rooting for a bank, but it does just that.If there’s one film from this year’s Oscars nominations that you should watch, it’s the documentary film Abacus: Small Enough to Jail. Except the Sungs and the people of Chinatown are at real risk, so there’s very little laughing going on. It’s also a near-laughable example of wrong-headed prosecution. The resulting film, “Abacus: Small Enough To Jail,” is a gripping, slow revelation at the same time that it’s also both a portrait of a tight community with its own set of norms and a study of the high-achieving Sung family (Sung’s daughters manage the bank). The respected documentary filmmaker Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”) found out about this early on and he follows the case with no one knowing how things will turn out. ![]() And then the DA offered the worm immunity to testify against his former employer. How did the district attorney find out about this worm? Abacus outed him. ![]() It turns out that Abacus had a worm working in its loan department who was falsifying loan applications and taking kickbacks and bribes. who, rather than pursuing the serious, big bucks bad banks, decides this small family concern is an inviting (read: easy) target. That apparently means nothing to valiant New York district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. Founded by Thomas Sung, who’s approaching 80 as the film unfolds, it is the 2,651 st largest bank in America, which is not very large at all. The accused was the quaintly named Abacus Federal Savings, a small concern consisting of four branches in New York City’s Chinatown that catered to the Chinese immigrant community. Some behemoth of Wall Street? A major lender that traveled in thousands of bad mortgages? ![]() In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, after countless billions of dollars had been squandered by the biggest financial institutions in America and American taxpayers were forced to bail them out, only one bank was facing criminal charges. ![]()
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