Saints don't live on Park Avenue.......

Rating: 3/10 (4 January 2016)

When four outsiders saw what major banks, media and government refused to, the forthcoming global collapse of the economy, they had an idea: The Big Short.
Their bold investment leads them into the dark underbelly of modern banking where they must question everyone and everything.......
I must be missing something, something really fundamental about this film, because of all its accolades, great big fat thumbs up reviews, I hated the film, and smarmy characters that were 'affected' by the films narrative.
But it want boring, it just made me angry, looking at these smug, consumerist bloodsuckers doing what they can for themselves, and then feel really guilty/happy/depressed about it come the end.
And what makes it worse is the fact it's awards season, so we get our favourite actors being shouty, or wearing wonderful hairpieces for a little bit of recognition.
Gosling here is at his most smug, being all Jerry Maguire but without any soul, and then breaking the fourth wall just to let the audience what a complete inhuman parasite he really is. And for some reason, he seems to channel Ray Liotta from Goodfellas.
Then we have the forty year old virgin himself, Steve Carrell, doing his best 'shout really loud' voice, which is supposed to indicate that he is miserable, stressed, or suffering a loss, but again, he comes across more of the bloke with the big mobile phone from Trigger Happy TV. He does play the key victim/Victor in the catastrophe, but when revelations become apparent to him, he gurns within an inch of his life. And for some reason, he seems to channel Joe Pesci from Goodfellas.
Pitt has no reason to be in this film, apart to prove that he can do serious, and do it good, but he was fantastic in Moneyball, and he's barely in this, looks out of place. A more seasoned actor, such as Gary Oldman, would have fitted the part better, and we wouldn't be comparing him to a 1970's TV quizmaster, like I did when ever he stumbled on screen.
Bale is the saving grace here, he's actually quite endearing as the 'Eureka' part if the. Movie, but as soon as you learn about his glass eye, and his wonderfully Foghorn Leghorn like stutter, you start to feel less empathy for him, and just wish he would stop banging his drums in that 'no one understands em' type of way.
What's surprising is that the rest of the cast, like Rafe Spall and Jeremy Strong are the most humanistic people in the film, and whenever they are alone on screen, I their secondary group, the film picks up slightly, rather than us having the big A-Listers doing their caricature like schtick.
Heavy on propaganda, and showing too much sympathy for the wrong people, apart from the one ethnic family in a car, The Big Short is just another in a long line of Oscar baiting true stories, that show abhorrent, poisonous rich people feel sorry for themselves, because something went wrong.
Why could they not have made the film from the point of view of a low income family affected by this instead.
Its like someone has took The Company Men, Margin Call, Glengarry Glenross, and wig r' us, and made them sit in a room and fight.
I know I'll be in the minority, but I hated it.