Based on the novel ‘The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine’ by Michael Lewis, The Big Short is a true story told from three different perspectives about the start and fall of the U.S. mortgage housing crisis. Michael Burry (Christian Bale), is a weird, quirky ex-physician turned cyclops, corporate business man and Scion Capital hedge fund manager. He prefers sporting typical shorts and a no brand t-shirt, playing with a tennis ball barefoot instead of your standard business man’s smart suit. Burry believes that the American housing market is built on a bubble of incredibly bad loans that will eventually burst within the next few years. The freedom to do as he pleases within his own company allows him to bet against the housing markets with the banks, without consulting the board.
Being the greedy corporations that they are, the banks are more than happy to oblige his request without a second thought; This is something that has never happened in U.S. history. The banks believe that Michael is crazy, thus they are confident they will win the deal. Word on the grapevine reaches the ears of Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) with Deutschebank and as an investor, he believes he too can cash in on Burry’s ideologies. A phone call to FrontPoint Partners gets this intel into the hands of Mark Baum (Steve Carell), a moral investor who is fed up with the corruption in this fraudulent system.
Movies like this really make my blood boil. This not due to the movie being necessarily bad; It’s more to do with the content matter. Its subject is so close to the truth that the majority of people on the planet can relate to it. The movie itself is excellent, riddled with lots of Wall Street lingo. But it was also great that we had random people explaining the really subject specific stuff, such as how these bad mortgages worked. We even had Karen Gillan (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Doctor Who) and Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad, Wolf Wall Street) explaining stuff from inside a bathtub or on the poolside sunbathing, thus talking directly to the audience and breaking the fourth wall. Ryan Gosling did this many times, as well.
I left the cinema feeling aggravated and irritated with this movie because of how truthful it was. We live in a society where people in power do not care for their citizens. Capitalism is like Jurassic Park. The ones who get rich get there through trickery and deceit by selling the average joe hybrid mortgages that are made up of smaller loans which they couldn’t sell but, more importantly, they tell people what they want to hear. They piled the mortgages together and gave it a different, sellable name without a care in the world.
They only care about lining their own pockets, even if that means the majority of the public must suffer to do so. We live in an age where the banks and businesses, like the ones in The Big Short, turn suffering into profit. Even our main protagonists made a profit from the stupidity of the housing market’s collapse. They were trying to do the right thing by making people aware, although they made a lot of money afterwards. It’s a cruel game, after all; Nobody wanted to hear the truth because it sounded so ridiculous. “It hadn’t collapsed before, so why should it now? Well, there’s always a first time.”
Mark Baum is a moral man but mentally conflicted as you’ll find out in the film. However, Carell’s performance is probably the best I’ve seen from him. I’m not a huge fan since the only films I’ve seen him do are trashy comedies, yet this movie shows that he has the straps to do proper serious acting. His character is very opinionated and does not care if people don’t want to hear what he has to say. He will go ahead to say more for his appeasement than theirs. He’s created a bit of a reputation for himself for being an opinionated motor mouth, and people just want him to shut up.
He’s also the one who asks the questions nobody wants to ask out of fear of what could happen. He’s moral yet pragmatic and follows his conscience. Many would call that a weakness in his line of work. At the same time, he finds it difficult to read certain people. For example, there’s a scene early on the movie where they meet two guys who are boasting about how they ripped someone off without them knowing. He thinks they’re confessing to fraud, but in reality, they’re bragging and they don’t care. This rattles him and he sees that he must act, or he’ll never forgive himself.
The Big Short is political satire at its finest. It’s witty and comedic with a seriously grim undertone. It confirms already established cynicism about banking corporations and Wall Street, whilst temporarily restoring one’s faith in Hollywood. Adam McKay has created something special here. He’s made something as ruthless as the economic crisis, yet funny and intelligent. This is aided by the great talent of Christian Bale (American Psycho), Brad Pitt (12 Years A Slave), Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), and Ryan Gosling (Drive). The movie is also supported by the cameo roles of Karen Gillan and Margot Robbie, and furthermore the supporting cast: Rafe Spall (Sons Of Liberty), Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story), John Magaro (Carol)
Overall, The Big Short is truly excellent. There are great performances from all of the cast but in my opinion, Steve Carell stole the show with his Mr Spock-esque Mark Baum, tapping into his half-human side. I also enjoyed the times when random actors as well as Ryan Gosling broke the fourth wall by talking directly to us, the audience. It’s a very well written, well-directed movie with a smart concept. Movies that tell the hard truths about humanity tend to be very depressing, and did I leave the cinema feeling vexed, yet this is something we all have to accept. A few guys got greedy, the money went to their heads, and then the economy collapsed which resulted in a colossal meltdown. The fraudulent people didn’t get arrested for corruption among other things. Instead, we blamed the collapse on immigrants and poor poverty-stricken people.
“We live in an era of fraud in America.
Not just in banking, but in government, education, religion, food. Even baseball…”
Mark Baum
The Big Short
Pros
- The acting
- Storyline
- Breaking the fourth wall
Cons
- The brutal honesty can be hard to accept
