Completely flying under the radar in an otherwise crowded December release schedule (Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Concussion, Joy, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant) is Adam McKay’s (Step Brothers, The Other Guys) The Big Short, a movie that is neither short on star power or storytelling. While most will find this movie riveting, it will, unfortunately, hit a little too close to home for many viewers. This movie, while at times challenging to understand, will leave you dumbfounded that what happened actually happened not in some far-off land in a time long ago, but right here in our own backyard just a few years ago. I promise not to explain this movie and then talk about some of the pros and cons. I will do my absolute best not to provide spoilers in this review.

The movie deals with the financial crisis that occurred between 2007-2008. More than 7 million Americans lost their jobs, and more than 6 million lost their homes. Millions and millions of Americans lost their life savings. Much like the big three car companies and many other sectors, many of our banks gave out loans that millions of Americas never received and ended up defaulting on, resulting in the average American taxpayer paying for such institutions’ egregious, fraudulent ways as Wells Fargo. It can make you sick when you think about the greed that many people in this country have and how many high-level executives at so many different companies took millions home in bonuses while their companies knowingly were doing unethical or illegal. The Big Short shows us that a movie cannot just be informative and entertaining but also suspenseful, and is why it is one of the year’s best all-around films.

As good as The Big Short was and for as many Golden Globe nominations it received (4), I’m not sure it’s worthy of any Academy Award nominations. I think it could get one for Best Picture simply because as many as ten movies can be nominated. Still, I don’t think it gets nominated for Best Screenplay, nor do I think Steve Carell or Christian Bale will get nominated for Best Actor because none of the four principal actors were on screen long enough. So I feel like The Big Short is that movie that could get some nominations but is not good enough to win anything at the major award ceremony in this country.

This movie’s premise can be confusing and disgusting while still entertaining. For example, you hear in the trailer that The Big Short is about a bunch of guys who bet against the housing market. Well, what does that actually mean?

In real life, you buy stock with the idea that the company will use the money you invest in furthering the company (expansion, new technology, better marketing, increased sales). As a result, the demand for that particular stock will increase, thus driving the price up. Likewise, suppose a company does well at the end of the fiscal year. In that case, you hope that they have generated a nice profit and hopefully will use some or all of that profit to give shareholders money back in the form of dividends. If you bet against a company, you are expecting the price to fall. The return on this investment is based on the likelihood of the stock actually falling. If a stable stock does, you’ll do well. If it does not, you pay the investment company a lot of money in premiums. Well, in the housing market, there was no such thing because betting against the housing market was thought to be insane. So when eccentric hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale – The Dark Knight Rises, The Machinist) discovers some trends that suggest that the housing market is being backed by subprime loans in which clients are providing fewer returns. He decides to go all in and bet against the housing market, which ultimately means he will either make a considerable profit or get fired and laughed out of the industry.

Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) plays Jared Vennett, a character looking to capitalize on the situation Burry is hoping to capitalize on while also serving as the film’s narrator. Fearful that it will lose its audience with all of the financial terminologies, McKay does something interesting. He has Vennett almost step out of character to become Ryan Gosling again and explain what terms like subprime, mortgage-backed securities, and collateralized debt obligations mean to persons unfamiliar with financial markets and housing industries. McKay does well trying to explain precisely what happened in the film while not making you feel dumb if you can’t comprehend everything. McKay is trying to say, “it’s okay if you aren’t picking up everything…if you get the basic gist of things, you’ll do just fine”. If it were an important enough piece of the story, it would have been stated in a couple of different ways.

Of all of the big names in the film, only Gosling and Carell (Foxcatcher, Crazy, Stupid, Love.) are on the screen together at any one point. Carell plays Mark Baum, a loud and abrasive small hedge fund manager. He is cynical and pessimistic. He is angry at the world after his brother commits suicide because he felt there was no way out of his financial ruin. Baum has a sense of moral outrage, and in a film where we don’t learn very much about the characters’ private lives, he becomes the character that we get to know the most. Whether we like him or not, there is no denying that he was the character that showed the most depth here. Vennett tells Baum of Burry’s dealings and tries to get him to buy a bunch of these bad bonds. As mentioned, it’s not super important to know all of the ins and outs of this movie. In this particular situation, just think of it as Vennett trying to get capital from Baum so that he can essentially do the same thing that Burry is doing. It’s very risky because a housing market collapse has never happened, but it’s something that, if Burry is correct, will result in substantial financial gain for these men.

Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Seven) plays Ben Rickert, a well-known financial analyst who has since retired and moved entirely away from the industry before being persuaded by two young traders (John Magaro – Carol, Unbroken and Finn Wittrock – Unbroken, The Normal Heart) to help guide them through the madness and help them cash in on the impending crisis. And even without ever having met Rickert, we instantly know that he is a man who is not easily impressed or disturbed. So when the two young men can grab his attention and get him to listen, we know that it’s game on. Pitt isn’t on the screen for very long, but he makes each of his minutes count.

The Big Short is a documentary told through a character-driven story. In the wrong medium or wrong direction, it would not have been nearly as enjoyable. I don’t know if McKay caught lightning in a bottle with his approach to this movie, but regardless, it worked tremendously well. It is probably a movie you need to see more than once, but it would be okay with just a single viewing. I liked the movie. While the acting is excellent, you don’t get to know these characters. My repeat viewing would be to understand the story more so than I did the first time. I recommend seeing The Big Short.

Plot 10/10
Character Development 8/10 (the lead characters changed…especially Carell and Bale…there just was so much story and so many characters)
Character Chemistry 7.5/10 (again with the three parallel stories going on, of all four of the major players, we only see Gosling and Carell on the screen at the same time)
Acting 9/10 (top-notch actors…kind of some wacky performances by each added to the movie’s flare)
Screenplay 9.5/10 (Charles Randolph and Adam McKay took some seriously comprehensive material and condensed it to a manageable running time…left out was some of the emotional aspects of each character. Outside of Carell, we really know nothing about the lives of the other characters outside of their jobs)
Directing 9.5/10 (see above)
Cinematography 7.5/10 (honestly, the appearance of these characters made me think we were in the early 1980s rather than 2007…still don’t know what’s up with that)
Sound 7.5/10
Hook and Reel 9/10 (despite the comprehensive material, I rarely felt lost and also knew that whatever I was missing, I could easily find online after my viewing)
Universal Relevance 10/10
87.5%