Best movie about the financial crisis so far

Rating: 7/10 (2 February 2016)

When writing a screenplay about the build-up to the financial crisis, the first thing most people would do is simplify. The financial crisis is such a complex phenomenon, that showing all its labyrinthine aspects would surely produce a box office failure. After all, the audience pays money to be entertained, not to be lectured about collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps and securitisation of sub-prime mortgage debt.
Luckily, the screenplay writers of 'The Big Short' decided to do it the hard way. They didn't shy away from the technical financial stuff, or the complicated way financial deals are structured. They included it all, but decided to make the best of it and explain everything. A stroke of genius, because the way these explanations are done makes the film much more funny and entertaining than would be the case without all the difficult stuff.
The makers of the film decided to break the fourth wall in a spectacular way. Not only do the lead characters sometimes speak directly into the camera, there are also small scenes in which technical stuff is explained by characters who have nothing to do with the rest of the story. The way Selena Gomez explains how a synthetic CDO exactly works, is not only funny, but also very clear. The film makers didn't have to include this part, because synthetic CDO's are not essential to the story, but it's to their credit that they wanted to explain even this very technical part of the debt bubble that led to the financial crisis.
Of course, the basis for the film is Michael Lewis's book, which in itself contains more suspense than an average crime novel. It's about a bunch of financial outcasts who decide to bet against the housing market, because they have done their homework, made their calculations, and conclude that a lot of the financial constructions are built on very shaky ground. As the introduction to the film explains: 'They looked'.
That is a great dramatic story, with a big 'David vs Goliath'-appeal. Against all odds, the protagonists of the story have to convince various adversaries, including banks, colleagues and clients, that they're right and everybody else is wrong. Most of the leads are colourful characters: the slightly autistic, barefooted, death metal playing, one-eyed investor Dr. Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale, is a prime example. Brad Pitt has a similar, but less offbeat role as the bearded, disillusioned investor who has left Wall Street behind to grow vegetables in his garden. There's a great scene where he tries to offload millions of credit contracts by calling his Wall Street network from a pub in the British countryside.
A lot of viewers will at one point or another get lost in the financial intricacies of the story. But that's not a big problem: it proves how complicated it all was, and how hard for even bankers to understand. That's the main message of the film: that Wall Street was going over the top in a big way.