Surprisingly personal and entertaining.

Rating: 7/10 (17 November 2016)

Overall, this was almost good as it could have been. Obviously, nothing ever really achieves perfection, but for what it is, The Big Short does not have much room for improvement. Since it's a movie about banking and stocks and mortgages, the terminology and concepts involved have to be explained, which is unfortunate in some ways but okay in others. Having celebrities explain the contrived concepts was inventive, and it sometimes did the job in simplifying the term being explained. The Selena Gomez poker example made perfect sense to me, but Margot Robbie in a bathtub was less than helpful for exposition.
The characters and actors are really what brings the movie to life, though. Often in historical movies, the characters fall kind of flat and get overshadowed by the event. But here, they get the limelight as they each find the flaws in the housing market. All are pretty easy to root for on-screen, but I don't think I would actually want to live around the actual people. They are all evidently messed up in one way or another to a considerable degree. Or at least, what most people consider messed up; at the end of it all, they are the only ones with their heads on straight.
Michael Lewis addressed a similar theme with Moneyball, which also showed how a few individuals destroyed the myths of conventional wisdom. He shows his readers how easily we as a culture are deceived by unsubstantiated and petty details. This is what the included Mark Twain quote seems to be getting at. Now, the characters' anger about the fraud that has corrupted the system is initially directed at the banks, but some of that frustration is eventually redirected to the common citizen. Many of the minor characters are consumers, not just those employing the fraudulent policies.
While there is definitely a good amount of comedy included, it is more of an added bonus. Unlike in most comedies, including Adam McKay's, the scenes are not structured to deliver a punch line or develop a comedic plot. It's still funny in it's own unique way, but with something as serious and tragic as the housing market crash, there are only so many jokes you can make while remaining tasteful. That said, much of the humor is directed at the various nameless characters that the main characters meet with. Since we, the audience, knows that all of the character's justifying their complacency on conventional wisdom are wrong, it's kind of funny. The main characters add in lots of fun lines of their own, usually involving Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) getting irritated or Jarred Vennett (Ryan Gosling) breaking the fourth wall. Probably my favorite humorous moment was when Vennett goes on a brief, racist tirade about his Asian subordinate, who then turns to the audience and says "actually, I do speak English, but I let Jarred say this so he can convince people" or something like that.
I would not, however, pick this if you are looking for a comedy. It's a lot more similar to something like Moneyball or Spotlight than other Adam McKay movies like Anchorman or the Other Guys. I can't say whether this is close to the book, but having read and seen Moneyball, I would guess that it is at least similar tonally to the book. It was such an emotional ride to watch, because I was enjoying the movie, but the whole time, I kept thinking about how awful it was that an entire nation could be deceived so easily without any kind of oppression or evident propaganda. So while it may be a rather fun film, you will likely leave feeling sobered and saddened. Overall Rating: 8.45/10.