The Big Short, comes up short

Rating: 6/10 (19 January 2016)

The Big Short tells the tale of the only people who saw the financial disaster of 2008 coming, fringe Wall Street-ers and bankers who were just outside the fray enough to truly see what was going on. We learn about the disaster that took place within the housing market through four parallel story lines, all of which taking place in 2005. The first involves Michael Burry (Christian Bale), an eccentric former physician who has gained almost complete autonomy in his work due to his incredible financial savviness. He explains to his investors that the housing market has been propped up upon an unsustainable bubble and is on the brink of bursting within a couple years. He wants the support of his investors in his aim to bet against the housing market, because he is so sure the bubble is to burst. Burry fights an uphill battle, as nothing was seen more stable than the housing market before the crash, as it had never in history sustained an economic blow. The bank is fully willing to take Burry's money as he proceeds to bet against the housing market, completely confident they are in for a big pay day. We also meet Mark Baum (Steve Carell), the finance worker completely fed up with the fraud and greed of corporations and Wall Street. Baum is outspoken and unapologetic; a crusader who realizes the depth of corporate corruption, but it still surprised and sickened by its gravity. "these are real people, people who will lose their homes and their jobs" Baum states disgustedly when he starts to see how deep the corruption has come in the housing market. Troubled by his own family tragedy, Baum fought against the banks, making the same sort of bets against them that Burry was making. Then there is Jared Vannett (Ryan Gosling), a Deutsche Bank trader who exudes over confidence, and embodies the personality of someone who is never told "no". His sole interest is to maximize capital for his investors, and sees his way of betting against the housing market as a sure payoff. Finally, there is Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt), a retired super-investor who moved to Colorado and lives as off the grid as he can to escape the atrocities he was a part of in the financial sector. He acts as a mentor to two young men with a startup desperate to get more money, and a seat at Big Bank's table. A mix of motivations and interests guide the audience through the worst financial disaster of our lifetimes.
Of all the things I thought could go wrong with The Big Short, pacing is not one I expected. I never thought getting the four story lines out there and fleshing out the difficult to understand bank lingo would be something told on-screen too slow, but it was. With so much to uncover and reveal about each individual, character development was only close to explored with Steve Carell's Mark Baum. The audience learns little about the other three story lines involved and is left with no real hero to side with. Granted, there is little to like, I suppose, about investors betting against the housing market and only getting their big pay day in the event of a global financial crash; further character development, however, would have went a long way in engaging the audience in the film. Unless of course you were engaged by the needless pop culture heavy devices to explain banking terms; i.e. a cameo by Selena Gomez, and Margot Robbie in a bubble bath. These injections of comedy and pop culture were immensely distracting and brought the viewer too far out of the world of the film. Overall, The Big Short was a disappointment considering the cast and storyline it had to work with. Questionable film styles also did little to endear this film to my heart.
The cinematography was horrendous in this film. What I can only assume was an attempt at the look of a docu-drama; a hand-held camera was used for much of the shooting of this film. The problem with the docu- drama realism is that it didn't mesh with the big budget look of the film, and just turned out to be migraine inducing shakiness. Everything was too slow, and by the time it was finished we only got a short introduction to the main players within but outside of the game. The only bright spot to this film was the acting, with one big exception; Christian Bale. Bale is the type of actor that only touches what turns to gold, and I understand he learned enough drums for his role in the film to fit his portrayal which shows his commitment as an actor. Bale nailed the zaniness of Dr. Burry, but forgot to expose the intelligence. A man that is supposed to come off as a socially awkward genius came off heavy on the socially awkward and light on the genius. Steve Carell played his tormented idealist fantastically, and it is truly a miss for the Academy that he wasn't recognized for this role.
If only the director, Adam McKay had more trust in the intelligence of his audience. Trust that he didn't have to embed pop culture reference at every turn and use beautiful big name actresses to interrupt the story. Had this film been done with a more serious tone, I believe it would have been deserving of all the attention it garnered from the Academy. But alas, we are left with another film propelled by a big name cast that could have been greatif only.