Extraordinary

Rating: 9/10 (6 February 2016)

This film blew me away, the entertainment, the audacity (of trying to explain complex finance), the exuberance, the wonderful directing/ writing/ editing/ acting.
The film simply "works".
The concepts are complex okay and the style is frenetic and modern but at its heart is old-fashioned outrage at corruption and dishonesty, in the tradition of Frank Capra. It similarly has a heart, and sympathy for its main characters, showing them warts and all: pain-in-the-ass anger in Steve Carrell's characterisation, the Asperger-like Christian Bale, the slimy, self-defending Ryan Gosling.
Director and joint writer Adam McKay has done a superb job in making the Financial Crisis both accessible and entertaining. Brad Pitt too deserves credit for producing (and playing a small part in) a film that must have initially met with scepticism in Hollywood. Thank God someone still tries to make films of substance.