A story that needed to be told

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2016)

This was a really interesting film based on a crazy story that needed to be told. I will start out by saying this is a film you need to turn your brain on and focus in on it to get what is going on. The film is about corruption, the collapse of the housing market and the people that was in on it. Some having more of a conscience to do the right thing or at least caring more than others. Because it deals with screwing over hardworking Americans by giving them false hope. Now I am not a numbers guy, don't really have much passion for economics and banking. So I was confused about few of the technical terms they share, but this film had my interest and attention all the way through because of how it's constructed and orchestrated. What interested me is how it plays upon human psychology. At that time betting against the housing market was thought of as ludicrous because most people thought the system was stable. However Michael Burry who is a fund manager finds a crack in the system and decides the capitalize upon it. And while this is going on people either think he is crazy or wants to be in on it as well. People got a sniff of this huge money making chance and it revolves around people that wants to be part of it. Despite them basically making money off of the suffering of others. How innocent people will lose their homes, their jobs, their retirement over this. Throughout this crazy story, a lot of integration of logic and equation gets put into action. It is a complex plot, but I thought they did a good job of using certain analogies to help the mainstream audiences get what was going on. More than the directing style, it's the plot which is based on a true story that intrigued me through out the whole ordeal. And because of the cast fit the roles so darn well, except Christian Bale as Michael Burry. I mean he is a good actor and he did a fine job, but he just didn't seem like Michael. So it's not that Christian Bale put on a bad performance, it's a bit of a miscast. However Bale will be a part of marketing this film. To viewers that didn't really know in depth what happened in this huge financial crisis will be in shock.
8.3/10