The Big Short

First for newbies, the events here took place prior to the Kevin Spacey film Margin Call (2011). So the Spacey film would have depicted events near the end of this film. Both are superb movies.

Back to the review. This film is very unusual in that the producers have shown fierce determination in taking a serious topic and making it as user friendly as one possibly can. Multiple techniques are used to this end and they all work well. In fact in places the film has a Monty Python quality. Why was this done? One can only assume that the producers understood the multiple studies showing that the modern city-dweller becomes uncomfortable when confronted with any facts which suggest that he or she was not paying attention when bad things were happening. After all we live in a democracy so the voters should have been more alert? Isn't that their job? The techniques mentioned attempt to appeal to our SESAME STREET side and make the whole thing as pleasant an educational experience as possible. But make no mistake, this is an educational movie.

One that should be mandatory for adults. Like getting a driving test before a license. How about learning about Wall Street and the banks before you invest with them...? Carell steals the film and may finally get the attention he deserves. Great actor.

Finally the message. The film suggests not only that Wall Street is corrupt but that the corruption extends to the agencies mandated to supervise Wall Street and (possibly) to Washington itself. The implicit message, conveyed in the end credits, that unless we deal with the problem at the source the symptoms will keep happening over and over and over.

Duh!

((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

The Big Short (2015)

**** (out of 4)

Four different groups of people notice that something isn't quite right with the housing market and soon make a large wager that the economy is going to fall apart.

Trying to sell America on a film that deals with a true story of the market collapse isn't the easiest thing to do and I must admit that I was shocked when THE BIG SHORT became a modest hit at the box office. I was even more shocked when I realized Adam McKay was the director behind this film but I was even more shocked at how wonderful he handled the material once the end credits started to roll. I mean, who thought that McKay would handle such a tricky story just like you'd expect Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman?

I purposely used those three filmmakers to make my point. The Hitchcock connection comes from that director liking to let you know you're in danger and then he milks the suspense. THe same is done here as you know going into the movie that millions of Americans are going to lose their homes and their jobs so McKay lights the bomb at the start of the film and THE BIG SHORT just grows with tension leading up to the final collapse. The Altman connection is how McKay uses four different groups of people acting during the same period to build up to the conclusion. All four stories are all very interesting on their own and the director perfectly mixes them together and plays them well off of each other.

As for the Scorsese connection, there's a whole lot of creative style on display here and just look at the wonderful cinematography that pretty much throws you into the middle of these meetings and you almost feel as if you're listening and watching something that you're not supposed to be. The style also really shows off the various lifestyles and the wild nature of Wall Street. Scorsese had tackled the excess in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, which would make a perfect double feature with this film. The score, the music selections and the dialogue just jump off the screen and perfectly create a world that most watching the film probably won't be a part of.

Of course, then there are the wonderful performances that bring these characters, the situations and the dialogue to life. Christian Bale, is there anything this guy can't do? He plays another weirdo here but is there anyone who does it better or more believable? Steve Carell plays perhaps the most troubled character here and the actor turns in the greatest performance of his career. Ryan Gosling's dry humor is perfect for the black comedy in the film and Brad Pitt is also extremely good even though he plays the most laid back character. Throw in Marisa Tomei, Melissa Leo, Rafe Spall, John Magaro and Finn Wittrock and you've got some of the best acting that you're going to see all year.

THE BIG SHORT left me a tad bit nervous the first ten minutes because I wasn't quite sure if it was going to be able to grab me and hold my attention throughout. After all, it's story is a confusing one that you have to keep up with but McKay does a marvelous job at using humor to get the more confusing parts across and it works perfectly. This is certainly a very intelligent film that gets its message across without having to scarifies the entertainment level. It's certainly a creative gem that actually works.

'The Big Short' fascinated me into seeing it without hesitation, had always wanted to see it but it took me a while to get a chance to do so. Have a lot of respect for any film that takes on complex serious subjects that absolutely should be portrayed and the talented cast. While the awards attention (particularly for the script) and critical acclaim (almost universal) interested me further. Plus it looked good.

Good 'The Big Short' indeed was. Very good in fact and while it was not quite perfect it is deserving of the acclaim it got and still gets. Not quite one of the best films of the year for me but very close, with the good things being many and being exceptional in quality. 'The Big Short' took on a subject that needed to be told and holds relevance today and found myself admiring how it approached it while also making something of very high quality as an overall film.

Structurally, 'The Big Short' can get a little complicated and not always easy to follow. Never incoherent as such, just sometimes not always as clear as it could have been.

It definitely would have benefitted from doing less than it did, perhaps not having as much going on and having less characters.

However, 'The Big Short' is well-made with mostly slick photography, despite the odd shakiness that distracts a little, and a fine eye for detail. Furthermore it is smartly directed, keeping things involving throughout the over two hour length, paced in a way that it doesn't feel that long and one is not feeling the seconds.

All the cast are terrific and embody their characters instead of just playing them. Christian Bale's confident quirky performance rightly garnered him an Oscar nomination and Ryan Gosling has one of the film's more challenging roles and essential to anchoring it and he is suitably despicable, not a side we see much from him and it was both interesting and slightly unsettling to watch. Steve Carrell plays it straight while still adopting a jokiness that doesn't feel out of place, he is fun to watch while showing an anger and torment that makes him moving. Brad Pitt does well too and the cameos don't jar or bog things down.

The script is one of the reasons why 'The Big Short' works as well as it does and deserved its Oscar win. It does a great job entertaining and informing and doing it in a way that's taut, smart and making one feel the right emotions. Even though there are issues with the structure, the story is still incredibly compelling, with the interconnecting subplots being involving and developing the compellingly real characters well, and have a lot of admiration for its handling of the subject. It's a very serious, brave subject and not an easy one to bring to film but a subject that's a relevant and important one to tell, 'The Big Short' does remarkably in this aspect. It's always engaging, and it is also funny and informative while also making me feel shocked, angry and emotional as the events unfolded.

Overall, very good with many wonderful things. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Don't know how Adam McKay made deplorable humans, blinding fear, gut-boiling outrage and gleeful shaming so much fun to watch. He brought along his bag o' laffs but planted them in such rich soil so we had to hack our way through the thick underbrush of tainted greenbacks and marked decks.

Everyone's in top form. Didn't recognize Brad Pitt for awhile. Ryan Gosling funniest. Christian Bale let us feel his pain and lonely genius. Steve Carell dug deep and came up with a real mensch.

Nice to see Marisa Tomei, Hamish Linklater, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Finn Wittrock, Max Greenfield and talented others working at a solid level.

I walked out of the Westwood Bruin Theater in awe and mad as hell.

Great drama moves you. It excites you. Scares you. Makes you sing. Makes you cry.

The Big Short makes you shake your fist. The Big Short is driven as much by its Iago as it is its Othello, and deservedly so.

The events in the story did happen. Many people still don't care. The Big Short gives you reason to care. That is what separates this film from being merely a documentary and turns it into high drama.

No matter your politics - mark this, like Citizen Kane, as a movie that should be seen at least once. It is not always comfortable to watch. And that is a good thing - The Big Short is a documentary of a real life horror that unfolds in slow motion, and reminds us that even after the fact - no one is listening. Because truth is like poetry.