Global economics boring!! not quite

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2016)

The Big Short is well worth a watch, based on the Michael Lewis book of the same title. It tells the story of the 2007 global economy crisis, of which we follow 4 main protagonists. Financial hotshot and hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale). Bale does a brilliant job of portraying this socially awkward, math genius who spotted the crisis before anyone else did and visited all the major banks placing 1.3 billion dollars in total against mortgage backed securities. Perhaps the most interesting character of the film is Carell's (who was brilliant) Mark Baum, wracked by guilt as he realises that America's financial meltdown will leave millions without homes and jobs. Ryan Gosling puts in a stellar performance as a sleazy trader who's only interest is making money. Finally there's Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) Who plays a retired banker who hates the system. He gets enlisted by two rookies who stumble across Burry's notes but don't have the namestake to get a seat at the big banks, unlike Rickert. We follow these guys on not only a journey about them making millions and in Burry's case billions of dollars. We follow them on an educational journey of how oblivious and corrupt these organisations are.
This film (although not a masterpiece) could be the most important of this generation. Largely because Adam Mckay does a brilliant job of explaining it. What makes this film work is the multiple methods Mckay uses to explain the story. He assumes the audience has no knowledge of the crisis what's so ever and this works because we're not plunged into a jargon filled, hard to follow film. We're instead immersed in a film that is informative, entertaining and funny. Mckay uses lots of techniques to help explain the terminology the most effective being that he breaks the fourth wall. He features celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain using fish metaphors and Selena Gomez simplify synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDO's). These scenes really help bring all the films themes together whilst explaining any confusion around the terminology.
Overall the plethora of A-listers used in this film were incredible. However the real credit should go to Adam Mckay for the way he constructed this wonderful film. Not least for the way he joined it all together at the end. Each character getting their moment whilst finishing on the moral side of this drama and the fact that still today despite what happened only one person went to jail and the banking industry hasn't changed.