Movie Review: "The Big Short" (Adam McKay, 2015)

THE GREAT FINANCIAL GAMBIT by Mo Shaunette

Above: Christian Bale as Dr. Michael Burry.  Photo ©Paramount Pictures.

In 2010, writer-director Adam McKay (late of “Anchorman” and “Step Brothers”) added another comedy film to his resume: “The Other Guys,” a buddy-cop flick starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.  The film was only a modest success, yet one of its central jokes has proven to be prophetic.  In the film, our heroes weren’t pit against drug smugglers or arms dealers, mobs or cartels; they were pit against investors and bankers.  The villains in a high-octane action flick were white-collar criminals.  It was a gag, but Mr. McKay took it seriously, even featuring a series of graphics explaining Ponzi schemes and their role in the 2008 financial crash.

The Great Recession looms large in “The Big Short,” Mr. McKay’s latest feature (which he adapted from a book of the same name by Michael Lewis).  The story begins in 2005, when hedge fund manager Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale) realizes that the housing market is headed for a collapse and opts to invest in credit default swaps, effectively betting that the housing market will fail.  

Soon, others pick up on Burry’s plan: fellow hedge fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carell), trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), and investors Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock).  Conducting separate investigations, the various players discover that Burry is right—the ship that is the American economy is headed for an iceberg, and none of them can do anything except try to get rich and get out while they can.

It’s striking how “The Big Short” presents this saga.  For most of the film, Mr. McKay goes for a faux-documentary feel, filming with handheld cameras and deliberately awkward zooms that evoke “The Office.”  Yet the film also indulges in unconventional montages and smash cuts, breaks the fourth wall, and repeatedly cuts to scenes of celebrities explaining the ins and outs of investments in layman’s terms for the audience.  I’m not sure I’ve seen a 2015 movie moment more bizarre than the scene where Margot Robbie sits in a bubble bath while drinking champagne and talking to the camera about sub-prime mortgages.

These absurdities can be jarring, though they’re not without purpose.  If truth is stranger than fiction, it’s because fiction requires a sensible plot.  But as a non-fiction chronicle of a frightening and ridiculous economic disaster, “The Big Short” is perfectly right to delve into the bizarre.  It's telling the tale of a handful of masterful con artists manipulating and misdirecting the entire nation, creating a complete clusterfuck of greed, irresponsibility, and ignorance.  

This madness is enhanced by a cast that brings their A-game, with Mr. Bale being worthy of special mention.  He plays Burry as a confident, yet socially stunted and awkward mathematical savant who spends entire days in his office crunching numbers while blasting heavy metal music.  Mr. Bale makes us feel for the man burdened with the responsibility of handling his clients’ money—there’s palpable sadness and dread whenever Burry writes down his company’s plummeting stock prices in the months leading up the crisis, fearing that his scheme to profit off of economic collapse will fail and that he and his investors will lose millions.

Impressive too is Mr. Carrell’s performance as Baum, who is a moral crusader and a raw nerve of emotion, quick to spurt anger, disgust, and sadness.  Baum is a man on the ground, talking to the bankers and brokers who are part of the scheme and realizing, to his horror, just how hard the crash will be when it eventually comes.  His revulsion is matched by Brad Pitt’s Ben Rickards, a retired banker and mentor to Geller and Shipley.

Rickards is portrayed as a sort of financial Obi-Wan Kenobi, a strange old man with odd theories and ideas who is eventually revealed to be most reasonable person in the film.  He helps Geller and Shipley cash in on the housing crash, but scolds them for celebrating the deals they’ve made.  He’s right to.  Geller and Shipley’s success comes off the backs of millions of Americans losing their homes, their jobs, and more.  They, as well as Burry, Baum, Vennett, and their associates, are essentially betting on the end of the world.

Which brings me to the place where “The Big Short” goes from being a solid comedy to being something almost transcendent.  By the end of the film, our heroes realize that the financial system was so, so much more broken than they could have possibly realized.  Not only is it so crooked that they nearly lose their investments due to the big banks scrambling to cover their losses in early 2007, but the banks who engineered the entire debacle end up getting away scot free thanks to a bailout from the government.  Not only did the banks con millions of Americans out of their money, but they got away with it thanks to taxpayer dollars. 

“The Big Short” is one of the best films of the year—and one of the most important.  In 2016, when the American financial system (and by extension, the world economy) remains irreparably scarred by the greed of AIG, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, and countless more, it’s more vital than ever that we understand how the Great Recession was born so we can prevent further financial crises.  “The Big Short” offers understanding and is funny, tragic, poignant, and an overall fantastic film.  Check it out.