Movie review: ‘The Big Short,’ with Steve Carell and Christian Bale, is engrossing, entertaining
The financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession that hit in 2007-2008 was the source of much global grief and heartache. The Big Short tells the flip side of this tragedy, about those who saw it coming and profited from it.
But this isn’t just another greed-is-great orgy, a la The Wolf of Wall Street.
Simultaneously sobering and entertaining, The Big Short carefully explores the guilt that comes with profiting from pain and inflicting misery on so many. The result is one of the best and most resonant films of 2015.
Based on the nonfiction bestseller by Michael Lewis, this fictionalized film from director Adam McKay — up to now known more for the broad humor of the “Anchorman” movies — is set in the world of the upstart geniuses and fund managers who, in 2005, began to sense that the economy, and more specifically the housing market, was due for a major crash.
At the heart of the story is Michael Burry (Christian Bale), a doctor, heavy-metal fan and financial savant who has built an investment company based on his uncanny instincts. Against all advice, he dives heavily into credit default swaps, basically betting the housing industry would tank at a time when common wisdom said that was impossible.
His unorthodox behavior attracts the attention of Deutsche Bank trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), who persuades fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team to get involved.
Similarly, two young Colorado hotshots — Charlie (John Magaro) and Jamie (Finn Wittrock) — hear about what he’s doing and want a piece of the action. Their mentor, Ben Rickert (a low-key Brad Pitt), tells them it’s a smart move. If the economy crashes and burns, all involved get unfathomably rich.
The movie works as a companion piece to 99 Homes, a film from this year about a laid-off construction worker who loses his house during the recession. Both films capture the deep sense of desperation that comes with a financial crisis and the collateral damage that’s left in its path.
As with Spotlight, the film about a newspaper’s exposé of the Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, much of The Big Short involves people sitting around computer screens delivering dialogue. But McKay, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Charles Randolph, rescues the movie from being a static experience with a playful sense of humor (cutting in snippets of pop-culture and news events of the time) and constantly smashing the fourth wall.
The likes of Anthony Bourdain, Wolf of Wall Street star Margot Robbie and Gosling’s character — as well as onscreen title cards — provide interstitial lessons on just what credit default swaps, tranches, ISDA and CDOs are.
It all makes for engrossing moviegoing and a timely economics lesson.
Cary Darling: 817-390-7571, @carydar
The Big Short
☆☆☆☆ (out of five)
- Director: Adam McKay
- Cast: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling
- Rated: R (pervasive strong language, sexuality)
- Running time: 130 min.
This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 1:48 PM with the headline "Movie review: ‘The Big Short,’ with Steve Carell and Christian Bale, is engrossing, entertaining."