The Big Short — Review
A cautionary tale of greed and its consequences.
There has been a long, rich history of comedic actors taking up dramatic roles and excelling in them. Continuing in the vein of Jim Carrey and Robin Williams before him, Steve Carell gives an earnest and heartbreaking performance in The Big Short. As the head of a small investment agency, Mr. Carell brings the necessary gravitas and emotional weight to a movie that otherwise is otherwise sprinting ahead on greed and adrenaline. Directed and co-written by Adam McKay, The Big Short is based on the book of the same name, published by Michael Lewis in 2010. The movie chronicles the ways in which a bunch of investors who predicted the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of the housing market in the USA, ended up profiting from it.
The story is an antithesis to the philosophy espoused by Gordon Gekko in the genre-defining classic, Wall Street. Greed is never good, especially when you’re selling greed gift wrapped with dreams and aspirations. The movie, while a tad bit myopic in its generalisations (all suits are bad, save for our protagonists), still comes off as a chilling cautionary tale as to how we can lose the ownership of our one bedroom studios if we build duplex penthouses in the air. While the movie never truly gains enough courage to call the protagonists hypocrites or go in a path that would be more damning, it does make for entertaining viewing. The sense of victory that one finds in all underdog movies comes off as subdued but is still present nonetheless. Is it right, to root for the leads, when all they’re doing is waiting for the worst stock market crash in history to take place? I don’t know, and neither do the filmmakers. It is an enticing moral (and ethical) question that should have been answered, but the movie lacks the courage or the ambitions to thread in that direction. This prevents a movie that is merely good from being an absolutely great one. The movie though succeeded in making one feel angry and helpless at the same time. How have none of the people responsible for the crash (barring one) been punished? Why did the government use the taxpayer’s money to rectify the mistakes made out of pure greed? While the visual metaphor of the government going to bed with the private banks was crass, it was powerful and necessary to show how murky and disgusting the system is.
With the chameleon masquerading as a human being, Christian Bale at the fore, the cast is pretty solid all around. The smarmy, campy, and sleek Ryan Gosling (in his comeback role), a flustered but dependable Brad Pitt (who also co-produced the movie), and the aforementioned Steve Carell round off the A-listers cast. An exchange between Mr. Carell and Melissa Leo, who works at a credit rating agency, captures the poignance and sorrow the material calls for but is seldom found elsewhere.
But the best performances in the movie comes from the supporting cast (Jeremy Strong and John Magaro being standouts), with all the actors giving the necessary depth to the well-defined characters in the script. Casting prominent faces such as Margot Robbie and the late Anthony Bourdain in cameos is something of a masterstroke. By breaking the fourth wall, in order to explain complex financial terms such as Collateralized Debt Obligations and subprime loans, Mr. McKay has largely succeeded in avoiding the need to use expositions and information dumps, as much as possible. The instances where these terms are explained are done using real-life examples, such as making a fish stew. By de-jargonising this, the movie becomes easily accessible to someone who never knew what a synthetic CDO is (like me).
The editing left a lot to be desired. I am not entirely sure if the abrupt and disorganising cuts were necessary. It does not allow the film to sit down and breathe, something which the material desperately calls for, but is unfathomably ignored. The choice of music also does not help the movie in any way, with rock being the go-to music type, which doesn’t really bring the subtlety or the wisdom the material deserves.
But despite my musings, The Big Short is an extremely innovatively written and thoroughly entertaining movie, thanks largely to the writing and acting. If not for anything, watch it for the crash courses given on various financial terms. If you are in the mood for something that is righteous in it’s (a)moral lecturing but entertaining while at it, then do check out The Big Short.