"Live Another Day" only sounds like a James Bond flick.
It's actually a documentary film about the American auto industry being rescued from the brink of ruin at the beginning of the Great Recession.
It includes 105 minutes of interviews with 31 car industry executives, journalists and experts - with a few words from car-crazy former "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno thrown in. Based on the book "Crash Course" by Paul Ingrassia, the documentary is about the government's auto industry bailouts in 2009.
I was the only person at the 1:30 p.m. showing of "Live Another Day" at the Carmike Theater near Northgate Mall last Sunday. (So much for Chattanooga becoming a "car town.")
For my part, I felt like a goldfish in a bowl when a Carmike employee walked in to check the exit midway through the film then again as I exited while two theater employees stood smiling outside the door, ready with brooms and dustpans to clean up the theater. Quick job, no doubt.
The film, meanwhile, was well worth the $8 ticket price, and it reminded me that the world was closer to a full financial meltdown than I remembered.
I took the near-empty theater last Sunday as a sign that most people have moved on, which I suppose is both good and bad. Good that the economy snapped back, bad that we might have forgotten to shed the profligate ways that got us into trouble to begin with.
Truth be told, all American families have a stake in the automobile business. As the old saying goes: As GM goes, so goes America. Or more locally: As VW goes, so goes Chattanooga.
If it weren't for the benevolent stance taken by George W. Bush and seconded by Barack Obama, the American auto industry as we know it might have been unalterably changed. If you don't remember, the two presidents tag-teamed to divert government stimulus funds to GM and Chrysler in the form of almost $80 billion in loans and direct assistance. Most of the money has been paid back (thankfully) and, in retrospect, the bailouts probably saved hundreds of thousands of jobs.
In truth, without the bailouts, there might be a whole lot more Toyota Tundras on the road today and a lot fewer Chevy Silverados and Dodge Ram trucks.
If the film "The Big Short," the winner of the Academy Award for best writing, is a dramatization of the housing crisis that led to the Great Recession, "Live Another Day" is more of a PBS-style documentary that picks the brains of those who were eyewitnesses to one of the most compelling business dramas in American history.
What's more, "Live Another Day" ends on an ominous note: Some of the circumstances that led to the near-collapse of the American auto industry are back in play today - specifically lavish labor contracts that make it hard for the carmakers to maneuver through recessionary cycles.
In one dramatic fact from the film, it is noted that GM's bills for yearly legacy costs - retiree pay and benefits - were, at one point, more than its annual outlay for steel to make cars and trucks.
If there is a white knight in "Live Another Day," it's our homegrown U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, who enters the the film just in time to inject some common sense into the proceedings. If they gave an Oscar for best supporting role in a documentary, Bob would be a shoo-in.
Corker, then new to Congress but a member the Senate Banking Committee, was the voice of reason who delivered a pointed message to the auto executives who had come to Washington asking for government assistance - essentially, "What were you thinking?"
If you'll remember, the auto industry had been slammed by a nearly 50 percent reduction in the number of cars and trucks sold in a year. Fuel prices hit $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008, and credit all but dried up soon thereafter due to the worst financial shock since the Great Depression.
Searching for gas this week after the Colonial Pipeline leak, I remembered how fragile - and fickle - our fuel supply can be.
Meanwhile, auto sales are back to pre-recession levels in the United States and the average transaction price of a new vehicle is more than $33,000 - while the median U.S. family income is a mere $53,000 per year.
Most personal finance experts would tell you that those two numbers are too close for comfort.
But fiddle-dee-dee, right?
We'll worry about that another day.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-645-8937.