The Big Short **** (2015, Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, Hamish Linklater, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Marisa Tomei, Finn Wittrock) – Movie Review

Co-writer/director Adam McKay’s dynamic and janglingly vibrating movie tells three separate but parallel true stories of the America mortgage housing crisis of 2005 like it’s a near cousin of The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s good to have that great movie as a role model but, comparison admittedly being odious, that just also means this seems a bit too like it in material and handling, and also not quite as great.

However, it’s still a real good movie, and the American Film Institute voted it Movie of the Year. It’s that good. They’re wrong, by the way, but never mind that for the moment. It’s probably as good a choice as any. There’s actually no Movie of the Year in reality, only a random choice in awards season pizzazz.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards went the weird route of nominating the entire star cast for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, Hamish Linklater, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Marisa Tomei, Finn Wittrock) and then nervously just to make sure, also nominated Bale for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. Bale is the film’s main star, by the way, even if it is very much an ensemble piece.

There were five Bafta nominations including Best Film, and it won a single award, for the prestigious Best Adapted Screenplay. There were four Golden Globe nominations, including Best Film – Comedy, but significantly, no wins.

In the stories, these players in world of high-finance predict the credit and housing bubble collapse of 2005 and decide to take on the big banks to show up their greed, arrogance and ignorance.

If it ends up seeing a deja vu copy of The Wolf of Wall Street that’s unfortunate because The Big Short has its own appeal and interest. Not necessarily fresh appeal, but strong appeal. It’s a good story well told. Bale is outstanding as the eccentric Michael Burry, a physician turned hippy one-eyed hedge fund manager, who bets against the housing market with the banks, who think he’s nutty and are confident they will win his deal for something that has never happened in American history. I guess we know who wins!

Gosling is less good as Deutschebank’s Jared Vennett who hears what Burry is up to and wants to cash in on the plan. But Carell is the other outstanding turn as Mark Baum, an idealist fed up with corruption, who gets wind of the scheme via an errant telephone call. Pitt, one of the film’s producers, helps it along nicely with a bit of star power in an attractive extended star cameo.

Co-screenwriter Charles Randolph helps McKay to adapt the book by Michael Lewis. This is fascinating stuff, though you do have to pay close attention throughout to the world of finance and its details, which may be a struggle at times, though the film makes huge efforts to explain itself to the audience, almost to the point of it feeling like a finance tutorial.

It has five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Bale) and Best Director, so that alone makes it a must see. On 28 February 2016, it won a single Oscar, for the prestigious Best Adapted Screenplay.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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