Great movie about the sub-prime economic collapse

Rating: 9/10 (20 March 2016)

The Big Short tells the story of a bunch of investment brokers as they un-earth the house of cards like financial products that the big banks sold, re-packed, sold and re-packed again.
The story is told in a documentary style that frequently breaks the fourth wall and takes time out of the narrative to explain some of the more technical stuff in easy to digest minuets that keep the narrative going. Everyone - essentially - acts their socks off with Steve Carrel knocking it out of the park on many occasions. Gosling gets top billing (and I don't think I have heard him speak so much dialogue before...) and he is great but more of a support and Christian Bale puts in another solid performance as a socially challenged fund manager.
My only gripe about the film is that the investors are made out to be quasi hero's, highlighting the fraudulent and despicable actions of the investment banks - but they really are just as bad as the banks; profiting off the eventual plight of millions of people just trying to get by. They showed no inclination to maybe visit the FDA or the government and give them a heads up on the catastrophe just waiting to happen in the hope that they could either avert it or at least throw a few people into jail...
That aside, this is a very good film and worth the 2 hours running time.