One of the Best Movies of 2015

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2015)

"The Big Short" is the screen adaptation of a book by the same name written by Michael Lewis, one of my favorite writers. Lewis also wrote "The Blindside," an award-winning film and several other books on the financial markets.
Lewis focuses on the few oddballs who could foresee the financial meltdown, partly because of their personality quirks. The film brings real- life characters to the screen. These are the few people who knew for a certainty that Wall Street was laying the foundation for a massive meltdown in the financial markets.
The screenwriters did something which seems impossible: they made this material very funny. Nearly every working American was touched by the meltdown. Their pensions, IRAs and 401(k)s suffered horrible losses, and the real estate sector of the American economy was crushed. We watch these brilliant misfits sleuth their way to an understanding of the complex, multi-layered fraud that was the sub- prime mortgage world.
The failure of institutions to protect investors is a background story. In the foreground are truly interesting characters who were like the Paul Revere's of the avoidable crisis., but no one would listen.
Fraud paid much too well, and there were no grown-ups in charge of our banks, government agencies, rating agencies or real estate firms.
This film is fun.