Big Short (The)

 

 

 

Genre: financial drama

With: Ryan Gosling (Jared Vennett), Christian Bale (Dr. Michael Burry), Steve Carell (Mark Baum), Tracy Letts (Lawrence Fields), Marisa Tomei (Cynthia Baum), Rafe Spall (Danny Moses), Hamish Linklater (Porter Collins), Jeremy Strong (Vinny Daniel), John Magaro (Charlie Geller), Finn Wittrock (Jamie Shipley), Brad Pitt (Ben Rickert). Cameos by Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain, Dr. Richard Thaler and Selena Gomez

Director: Adam McKay

Screenplay: Charles Randolph and Adam McKay (based on the book by Michael Lewis)

Release: 2015

Studio: Paramount Pictures, Regency Enterprises, Plan B Entertainment

Rating: 14A

MBiS score: 8.5/10

 

Nobody Likes Naysayers

 

 

Story-line: in 2005, a money manager based in California takes a critical look at the real estate market and concludes that it is headed for collapse. When he acts on his discovery and bets heavily against the market, the financial establishment mostly disbelieves him but a few investment pros take notice.

Pluses: terrific turns by Ryan Gosling (the crafty Vennett), Christian Bale (Burry the maverick), Steve Carell (the angry, vindictive Baum), John Magaro and Finn Wittrock (the young guns from Brownfield) and other cast members collectively, a cynical and psychologically truthful screenplay that dares to use tough talk, a mountain of facts and gut-wrenching drama to convey its message, inventive, adrenalin-charged direction, high-calibre production values and a motley, driving soundtrack.

Minuses: the movie uses confusing financial lingo but most of it is explained through entertaining cameos; on this issue, my best advice to you is to go with the flow. Ditto for the movie overall, which is so jam-packed and unrelenting that you won’t be able to catch everything.    

Comments: based on the terrible but unfortunately true events that led to the financial crisis of 2008, THE BIG SHORT is especially effective in its depiction of the roller-coaster, pressure-laden and brutal world of traders and money managers. Theirs is a dog-eat-dog business in which they risk their physical and mental health as well as tons of money but the scariest facet of their story is that, even if these workaholics may not be very likeable, our whole economic system – our way of life, actually – rests in their febrile hands. As it illustrates one of those times when the system failed us, Adam McKay’s film begins with hubris and thundering noise and ends with a wreck and Led Zeppelin’s regally slow When the Levee Breaks. If you’re anything like me, you’ll stay glued to your seat, half-stunned and half-horrified, until the final credits have vanished from the screen. THE BIG SHORT is a front-row seat to financial disaster.  

 

MBiS

© 2020 – All rights reserved