The Big Short is directed by Adam McKay, stars Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, and Steve Carrell, and tells the story of the causes of the 2008 financial crisis and those few investors who saw it coming and made a huge profit.
To start, the things the movie did right. The cast is somewhat surprisingly full of A-list talent and the movie benefits from some excellent performances from Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt even though their screen time is limited by the vast number of storylines. Christian Bale especially stood out to me in his portrayal of the eccentric and odd Dr. Michael Burry making the character intriguing and fun to watch. Additionally, the film has an uncanny ability to make something as complicated as Collateral Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps entertaining. In several instances, The Big Short seems to recognize the subject matter is too complicated to even try and communicate through dialogue so they just have a famous celebrity come out and explain the concept outright. This is very effective and keeps the audience from getting bored of seeing investors talking in generic office buildings. Given the serious subject matter, it is a little surprising to see the movie have so much humor. While the tragedy of the situation is definitely there, it is counteracted by the many humorous and exaggerated moments.
Even though the film does as good a job as could be expected explaining a complicated issue, in the end, it is limited by its own topic which detracts from the characters. Obviously, the movie is not meant to be focused on the characters but with the amount of depth that Christian Bale was able to convey in the limited amount of screentime he had, it would have been interesting to see a film that focused more on some of the individuals and the effect of profiting so heavily from an event where most people suffered. Steve Carrell’s performance was unconvincing to me as he always seemed like he was trying to hard to be serious. This made all of his lines seem oddly comedic and definitely exaggerated. Another thing that made the movie worse for me in particular was the fact that outside of the explanation of the 2008 financial crisis, the film does not have a whole lot to offer. Since I had already read the book The Big Short, I already knew the intricacies of the mortgage meltdown and so many parts of the movie were kind of boring, which I expect it will be for most people who have previous knowledge of the 2008 financial crisis. This is more a nitpick with the limitations of films that are based of technical events as The Big Short does a phenomenal job with the material it has to work with.
In conclusion, The Big Short is a surprisingly funny, technically dense, entertaining movie which is worth watching for anyone who is looking to learn more about the financial crisis that has shaped much of the world economy in the past decade and who wants to have a good time doing it.