It's inherently hard to make an interesting financial drama. Films such as Boiler Room and Glengarry Glen Ross that make the financial world thrilling are few and far between. Therefore, it is natural for a man like Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Other Guys) who brings energy and creativity to all of his films to be brought on for a film like The Big Short. While all of what McKay does with this story is entirely successful, he has made a creative, self deprecating film about the lead up to the 2007-2008 recession that manages to break through most of the cliches it could have been surrounded by.
The film follows multiple stories about people who decide to bet against the banks, starting with narration by Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling,) a young man making his way through high finance who explains he is one of many who heard that Michael Burry (Christian Bale, the MVP who is nothing if not underused in the film) believes that the financial world is a bubble and it's about to pop, so betting against the banks is a great decision. This news also manages to get to Mark Baum (Steve Carrell,) who runs a small financial department with three assistants (Jeremy Strong, Hamish Linklater and Rafe Spall.) They decide to track down Jared in order to get the inside scoop. However, young men Jamie Shipley and Charlie Geller (Finn Wittrock and John Magaro) want to get the perks first and enlist the help of a former financial god of sorts, Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt.) Soon, all the men find themselves questioning whether or not this was the brilliant idea it initially seemed to be.
All the performances are fantastic here. As previously mentioned, Bale is the best one of the lot, giving what easily could have been an over the top, not very interesting character a fascinating attitude and background. However, Gosling, Carrell, Wittrock, Magaro and Pitt all give their characters interesting spins and motivations that makes the audience root for all of them even in their worst moments.
However, the star here is Adam McKay, whose screenplay (based on a popular book by Michael Lewis) and directing bring an energy to the film that easily could have been non-existent. He injects a ton of humor, including a hysterical gag that involves Jared admitting how boring what he's saying is through his narration. This makes the film investing without ever feeling like it's trying too hard. There's no strokes of overly broad comedy but rather a subtle mocking of the subject at hand.
The film is flawed, however. Great actresses such as Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei and Karen Gillan show up for a scene or two a piece and are completely wasted in the process. It felt like I could have put on a wig and done these roles. That's not to knock the actresses at all but rather to knock the fact that the script doesn't let them have any sort of meaning to their characters. Also, at a little over two hours, the film does get rather redundant and tedious at the end. For the last fifteen or twenty minutes, it does feel like McKay could have cut out some of the fat. Lastly, the film's tone does shift in a way that feels completely random and unnecessary. It's one thing to change completely from comedy to drama but there should be more of a reason to it.
While there are some undeniable flaws to it, The Big Short is a mostly enjoyable, interesting film depicting an event that needed to be told in a manner such as this one. What happened behind the scenes wasn't really known and McKay, along with the A-list cast, deliver an extremely solid retelling of the side the public didn't truly know.
(4 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for pervasive language and some sexuality/nudity)
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