A comedy with its middle finger pointed straight at Wall Street

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2016)

The big short starts off at a frenetic pace, but writer director Adam McKay eases you into this world of sleaze and thievery run by people that make a living off of making the entire world think that only they can do what they do. Using ingenious celebrity cameos, the audience gets to witness firsthand the fraud, stupidity, and ignorance that led to the 2008 Wall Street crash. Movies like Wall Street and the wolf of Wall Street used the frenetic and confusing nature of the financial world to keep the audience at an arms length, to show how truly brilliant these thieves are. The big short reverses that trend and exposes that the only brilliance in Wall Street is the ability to bury the truth in mountains and mountains of bullshit. The movie depicts the people that were able to see through this mountain, dig it out, and come across the hidden sewage beneath it. The performances are brilliant, each actor making his or her mark on a situation so fraught with moral hypocrisy. Steve Carnell and Christian bale are the standouts here, the former as an angry investor who wants nothing but the taste of corporate blood his mouth, but understands that he and a few others will be the only people in America to benefit from the situation. Christian bale stars as the troubled but brilliant Michael burry who craves attention for making such a grind breaking discovery. Other impressive performances include Ryan gosling as the narrator and the man who sees the situation in the most objective light, and Brad Pitt as the ex banker who sees this as a way to get back at the profession that left such a scarring impression on him. Overall, the big short is a wonderfully entertaining movie that knows just when to slow down and remind the audience why they're having so much fun.