The Big Mess

Rating: 5/10 (21 February 2016)

Okay. So why is 'The Big Short' an average film?
It's messy. Tonally, it's all over the place, featuring inconsistent uses of fourth wall breaks, random advertisements and clips scattered throughout, and sitting up in the director's chair, we have Adam McKay. The director of Anchorman (along with many other Ferrell-starring comedy vehicles), was not the right man to tell this story. Don't get me wrong, the subject matter is very interesting and necessary, adapted from the 2010 book of the same name which focuses on the financial crisis that hit in '07; but with such an important story to tell, was McKay the right man for the job? I'll let you decide. Unfortunately, I feel though his vision is scattered and the final product is rather uneven. The Best Director Oscar nomination is certainly surprising.
It's the inconsistencies and lack of attention to the small details that bothered me. The film has an excellent soundtrack, in terms of song choices, but the way 50% of the songs are used, feels very poorly applied. Jarring cuts, odd mixing levels, etc. The same goes for the fourth wall breaks. We meet Jared Vennett (played by Ryan Gosling, who is excellent here) within the first few moments of the film, who essentially introduces the subject matter to us. It's okay, I can buy that, it's sort of reminiscent of Leo's discussions with the camera in The Wolf of Wall Street. But the fourth wall breaks that feel totally out of place, were (to name a few) the cut to Margot Robbie in the bubble bath, Selena Gomez gambling, even the ones between various supporting cast members. It took me out of the film for sure, I don't know about you. Gosling does get the most frequent asides though, which I was okay with. He certainly has a Leo-esque style about him.
So, it's 2005. Bare foot, shorts sporting Dr. Mike Burry (Christian Bale) has realised that the American housing market is very unstable, as it's built upon subprime loans that are providing fewer returns. In the film's terms, the market is built upon a bubble that he predicts will 'burst' within the next couple of years. Burry decides to bet against the housing market, creating a credit default swap (CDS) market which the banks gleefully accept, since they genuinely believe that there's no way in hell that the collapse will occur.
It's Burry's actions that are the catalyst for those of the film's other major players. Vennett, previously mentioned above, hears of Burry's unusual actions and comes to the realisation that he is absolutely right. The market is becoming increasingly unstable and so as Vennett jumps on board Burry's train of thought, Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) by accident hears of his actions and... yeah, you're getting the picture. Baum joins Vennett, hoping to profit from the CDS's as the result of the economy's collapse.
Other players include young naïve investors Charlie and Jamie (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock), who come across one of Vennett's papers; and Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) a retired banker, and old friend of Jamie's, who is one of the few figures who have a genuine fear concerning the losses of jobs and homes as a result of the eminent bubble burst.
I'll say it again, the information is important, the subject matter is brilliant, but at times, the way McKay and Randolph's screenplay "dumbs-things-down" for it's audience is totally ridiculous. And even then, watching a nude bathing Margot Robbie is enough to completely distract so you don't know what the hell she's talking about. Other points in the film throw so much financial jargon at you, it's hard to keep up, unless you go home from the cinema and try to google everything before you forget what you heard. If you can completely understand the concept of CDO's (basically "re-packaged poor loans"), after one viewing of this film, then I take my hat off to you.
This review makes it sound like I hated the film, I realise that, but there is a lot to like here. Gosling's performance (and in particular the workplace bathroom scene) deserves praise. The honest human empathy and fear of the future reality expressed by Pitt certainly restored my faith in what seemed to be a world of greed and ease associated with turning a blind eye. Rickert states "If we're right, people lose homes. People lose jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions. You know what I hate about f_cking banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here's a number - every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?".
But I can't seem to shake how disjointed the whole film is. The poor music cuts, the uneven direction, the (overrated) dodgy editing; I genuinely wish I liked it more than I did, because it's got the appeal, but sadly, falls short on both style and occasionally, substance.