Five-Word Review: Poignant, Sobering, Hilarious, Expertly Crafted

Rating: 8/10 (8 February 2016)

Adam McKay may be known for nothing more than Anchorman, Step Brothers, and The Other Guys. However, he subverts his image into Oscar nominated form with a look at the Housing Bubble Crash of the mid- 2000s. With a top-down look on the crisis as opposed to 99 Homes's bottom-up look, The Big Short stars Crazy Stupid Love's co-stars Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling alongside Christian Bale (The Fighter) and producer Brad Pitt (Moneyball), with celebrity cameos aplenty.
This film is a must-see for everyone with even a minor interest in just what happened in 2007, along with Margin Call. Intelligently juggling laugh-out-loud wit with solid drama and a fascinating subject matter, this film's strength is surely its direction, condensing complex economic concepts such as Sub-Prime Mortgages and Synthetic CDOs into fourth-wall breaks, irreverent text on the screen, and subversive cutaways starring the likes of Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez. The story is fascinating due to its realism, which is pulled off perfectly with the camera-work, narration and use of images/other media cut alongside the film that render it very documentary-like. Not that it doesn't also inspire seething rage, at the fact that these people got away with everything they perpetrated.
Which is where the characters come in. Despite recognising and correctly predicting the dangers facing the American housing market, and consequently the world economy, these men are, in Gosling's character's words, not the heroes. With grey morality and questionable decisions, the characters feel human, like real people might have been during this very time. Divided into three main interweaving story lines, Carell serves as the main character, his Mark Baum a moral compass desperate to retain his virtuous integrity in an increasingly amoral world, whilst his actions themselves become increasingly reminiscent of the very bankers he hates. He and his team, including Rafe Spall, grudgingly join forces with the standout character, Ryan Gosling's fabulously despicable Jared Vennett. Playing like a toned down version of DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort, Vennett is fast- talking, charismatic, and honestly the image one would conjure up when imagining the scapegoat of the banking crisis. With cheeky, witty narration that perfectly executes the fourth wall break, he constantly steals the screen. The Oscar-nominated Bale seems somewhat surplus to requirements at time, his story taking place far from the others', yet he is astounding nonetheless. His Michael Burry, with Asperger's, struggles to maintain human relationships but has a certain talent for numbers, and drumming. The final story concerns two young businessmen (played by John Magaro and Finn Witrock) who, desperate to play in the big league, enlist the help of retired, disillusioned banker Brad Pitt to try and get in on Burry's revolutionary scheme which Baum and Vennett are profiting from. The acting is superb across the board; performances are rendered incredibly believable and human, with Carell building on 2014's Foxcatcher with another genuinely fantastic dramatic performance.
Good as it may be, The Big Short is not deserving of the Academy Award for Best Picture for 2015, though I am yet to see most of the other nominees. Albeit witty and mostly well-judged, the script often falls flat. Economic concepts will be handled and explained perfectly in one scene before the next scene features repetitive jargon that fails to hold much interest. This becomes a little frustrating, with the script's infrequent but irritating lapses into boredom hold the film back from its full potential - case in point, a scene with Melissa Leo falls almost completely flat. However, the ending makes up for the inconsistencies, a final piece of voice-over delivering a crushing blow of depression to the audience and some final biographic wrap-up text that finishes things well. All in all, a film with a lot that is really good about it, including acting and direction, whilst the utterly un-formulaic style is an endless joy to watch. Despite the bad in it, The Big Short remains a thoroughly important and generally very entertaining watch. 81/100.