"The Big Short" Review

The Big Short is a comedy-drama film based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Michael Lewis that follows three groups of people within Wall Street trying to profit off what they see as an impending and certain economic crash, which turns out to be the 2007 global financial meltdown. In the process, the film delivers a scathing indictment of the Wall Street fatcats behind the crisis, whose fraud, greed, and in some cases sheer negligence and lack of foresight caused the worst economic event since the Great Depression. The film is led by a respectably star-studded cast including Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, and Brad Pitt (I'm ordering the big ones in order of screen time unlike the promo posters), as well as nobodies John Magaro and Finn Wittrock as two inexperienced young investors who are mentioned in zero promotional spots for this movie despite having larger roles than their in-movie partner in crime Brad Pitt.



The Big Short is also a movie I didn't really want to see. Trailers for this movie were non-existent until late October of last year, just under two months before its wide release, and it seemed like a last ditch effort as one of those "maybe" Oscar contenders (which seems to have worked, if precursor awards are any indication). Once the critical and audience praise for the movie started to come out and friends began recommending it to me, I decided to give the movie a look.

Something that might stick out to people about this film is that it's directed and written by Adam McKay, and if you recognize that name, it's because his other directorial efforts include Anchorman, Step Brothers, The Other Guys, and Talladega Nights. So, this comedy-drama-but-mostly-drama is the first of its kind in his filmography, and he's handled the transition rather well. The tone remains consistent, being funny most of the time, but never losing the anger carrying both the humor and the drama.

McKay also directs his actors through this very capably, with Pitt being the least impressive of the main bunch (though not bad by any means). Gosling acts more as a narrator than an actual player in the game we're watching, and is the same suave, cool, and deceptively smart wise-ass we love watching him play, and he delivers it perfectly once again (think of his character in Crazy, Stupid, Love, except replace his knowledge of banging women with investments and mortgages). Bale is notable as the socially awkward catalyst for the early prediction of the crisis, playing a character implied to have some sort of social disorder with great sincerity. My personal favorite of the group, however, was Steve Carell. Many told me that Foxcatcher was Steve Carell's break into dramatic acting, but I think this is it. Carell not only plays the most interesting and complex character (albeit not having as many tangible quirks as Bale's), but manages to deliver the sincerest of both laughs and emotional gut-punches in just about equal measure. His facial expressions and crackling voice in the film's final moments are the emotional core of the film, which is only punctuated by the movie's blood-boiling epilogue.

That is The Big Short's greatest achievement - it makes the viewer care about this issue. Gosling's narration and explanation of all the technical terms and financial mumbo jumbo throughout the movie, which I think was one of the film's greatest strengths, gives entertaining, concise, and clever rundowns of the events portrayed without ever feeling pandering or like a detour from the story. The narration, which is mostly darkly funny in its own right, pushes the story along at a good pace and informs as it entertains. And it gets you mad.

If I have any complaints with The Big Short, it's the editing, which is oddly one element of it that I've seen be praised quite a lot. The actual pacing and structure of the story itself was fine, and the stories of our nearly dozen main characters all felt complete. The problem was the cutting together of each individual scene, which cut to humorous pictures to go alongside dialogue, abrupt music cues, or entirely different conversations in a way that I suppose is meant to be funny, but mostly ended up being so quick that it often became distracting and jarring. The progression of some of the scenes looked almost as if McKay were looking originally to make a documentary based on the book, especially considering how heavy on text and explanations the film gets in its first and final scenes, which would make one wonder why he didn't just make a good documentary. Still, bearing that and the fact that I haven't seen Margin Call in mind, The Big Short is probably the best and most approachable fictionalized account of the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis we'll get for a long time.

The Big Short is a drama directed by a comedy director, and in terms of filmmaking, it shows. But, it has a snappy and well-constructed script, several very good performances especially from Steve Carell, and most of all, a sense of irate, chest-beating urgency. There are numerous great documentaries on every aspect of this very complex subject that you could find, but The Big Short is arguably the most accessible (and surely the funniest) narrative film about the global economic collapse you'll find out there. It makes a complicated but very important topic, one that affects everyone, easy to understand and entertaining to watch unfold. That, despite its flaws, makes it almost essential viewing.

Grade: B+