The Big Short (2015) (English Language)

Review

130min

Genre:      Fact-based, Comedy, Drama

Director:   Adam McKay

Cast:        Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling…and more

Writers:    Charles Randolph, Adam McKay & Michael Lewis

-Synopsis-

Comedy writer/director extraordinaire Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights) wrangles an all-star cast in this tragic tale of corporate greed, stupidity and corruption, about a rag-tag group of Wall Street outsiders who predicted the bursting of the mid 2000s US housing bubble, which led to global financial meltdown, and who made billions of dollars betting against the big banks and the American economy.

With the help of solid source material in the form of Michael Lewis’ original book, plus a cast that includes no less than Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling, director Adam McKay vents his righteous fury and rages against the machine in tragic comedic style on a subject that has affected most of the Western world in some way, and which is based entirely on real events, incredibly.

Despite the fact that this is an irreverent financial drama with over-the-top characters and random 4th wall-breaking moments of pop-culture satire, like Margot Robbie or Selena Gomez illuminating the complexities of the US mortgage industry and debt economics while sipping champagne in a bubble bath, ‘The Big Short’ is not quite an outrageously entertaining ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ style corporate corruption comedy/drama.

Instead this is a more measured comedy/drama with an uneven pace that often falters with the paltry efforts of illuminating the characters of the real people involved. The more grounded nature of the film and its recent setting should make it all the more shocking, but the momentum gets lost with the efforts in explaining deliberately complex financial “systems” to a layman audience.

What it does share with the likes of ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ and ‘Wall Street’ is the core message that despite political soundbites and banker “assurances”, nothing has changed and everything is still in place for this to happen all over again. The depressing reality is that the system cannot be fixed without being smashed, and with the fabric of our modern capitalist society coming down with it.

The Bottom Line…

When it’s funny, it’s very funny, and the subject matter is no doubt compelling while promoting no small measure of righteous indignation.

But the with a convoluted narrative, coupled with central characters that are just not relatable and feel like quirkier versions of the same banking pirates that caused the meltdown in the first place, only disguised as perverse Robin Hoods, ‘The Big Short’ is ultimately an entertaining and timely moral outrage comedy that just falls short of the modern anti-establishment classic it could have been.

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Similar films you may like (Home Video)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2015)

Legendary director Martin Scorsese’s masterful tale of greed, excess and corruption, based on the true story of charismatic stockbroker Jordan Belfort who defrauded investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring  Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie among others.

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