MOVIE REVIEW: The Big Short

Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Charles Randolph, Adam McKay, Michael Lewis
Stars: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt

Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt star in this tale about how the ordinary man in America who had a mortgage got screwed by the financial con men that ran the banks. Maybe I’m a little biased here, but a lot of my friends and family in 2008 got truly screwed over when it was revealed that the banks were lending cash to anyone who just walked by their door. People expected banks to say ‘ARE YOU KIDDING? YOU CAN’T AFFORD THIS LOAN!’ but instead were welcomed in through the doors and had piles of cash just thrown at them. IF you want to know what happened, and the truth about what happened, then this is the film for you. To be honest for the last 8 years I’ve tried to understand what the hell was going on, but until The Big Short I had no idea at all.

I’m not going to sit here and explain what they explain during the movie, they do it better, I mean I cannot compete with Margot Robbie in a bubble bat. I’m not joking, Margot Robbie stars in this film as herself, in a bubble bath, explaining part of the how people got screwed. Also a well-known chef and a young American Pop star, they are all playing themselves and are all explaining simply how the traders and those arrogant idiots on Wall Street all screwed us over and got their impressive bonuses for doing so. The amount of times that nearly every main character breaks the fourth wall would be annoying in any other film, but the scriptwriter and the Director seems to know exactly when they are just about to lose the audience and manage to hold us through the darkness with one of these moments. What I really loved is that the film is honest, it doesn’t try to make the traders and other bankers out to be shadowy villains, they are greedy, but in all honesty that is a trait that most humans share. We can do a lot of good but the majority of us will look out for our own best interests first. The financial characters all see the crash coming, and put blinders on to the effects that it will have on the common majority, to make their millions. It’s fun to watch until you realise that this is a true story that crushed the lives of millions, if not billions, of hard-working honest people. You have to stop yourself from being too entertained, which for me is a very odd situation, as the film is filled with really entertaining pieces and performances.

Christian Bale plays the man who first sees that the housing markets are going to crash, he’s in charge of some fund that makes money for rich people, and bets heavy that the market is going to crash. This oddball character works well for Bale, making a lighter character for him to play is something that he needed to do. It’s still a great performance but lighter than normal. All the cast, big names and supporting actors, do a fantastic job bringing you into the world of the financial douches who created a fake economy. The actor who stands out more than anyone, and it’s the second time that he’s proved that he’s not just a funny man, is Steve Carell. Building on his underrated role in Foxcatcher Carell plays a banker who sees that his colleagues are just low life scum bags willing to do anything to get another dollar out of someone.

This film is perfect for people who didn’t understand how money that didn’t exist could cause all this trouble. It will explain to you how it happened, but you have to listen to the film and pay attention, so if you are one of those horrible cases that can’t leave their phone alone during a film then you are going to be lost. If this was just a piece of entertainment then we wouldn’t believe that this could happen, it would almost be fantasy, but the reality of the whole system is brought straight out and laid for all to see. This makes this film a comedy drama, but to me it’s almost a horror. I am going back to watch this again, and I know a few business types that will love every second of the film.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]