The last book by Michael Lewis turned into a movie was Moneyball, about Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s ability to craft a winning team by looking for players that other clubs undervalued. The Big Short, the latest adaptation of Lewis’ non-fiction works, has a number of people that are similar to Beane in their prowess in seeing what other people don’t, but these guys see the impending collapse of the American economy. With some of the stylistic flourishes and a story of financial sector malfeasance, Adam McKay’s film will draw some comparisons to The Wolf of Wall Street, yet The Big Short stands on its own in tackling a different kind of crisis that laid waste to the American economy. It’s a funny and sharp piece of filmmaking, a work that entertains and informs while causing your blood to boil as you realize that nothing much has really changed.
The film follows four different groups of Wall Street outsiders. In 2005, Michael Burry (Christian Bale), an M.D. turned investor, discovers through his research that the housing market, deemed the safest and sturdiest of the financial sector, is rapidly approaching a breaking point. He plans to short – a Wall Street term for betting against – the bonds that serve as the backbone for the mortgage and housing markets. Burry’s investors scoff at the notion and the financial institutions happily take his money under the assumption that he’s just handing it away to them. But others around Wall Street start to take notice. Starting with Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), a greedy Wall Street broker, others soon catch on to what may be a big payday as the eventual collapse looms on the horizon. Vennett brings the idea to the attention of Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team (consisting of Rafe Spall, Hamish Linklater, and Jeremy Strong), who do their due diligence before realizing that it is all really going to come crashing down. Finally, the impending doom grabs the attention of two young investors, Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) and Charlie Geller (John Magaro), who with the help of their mentor Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt), a reclusive eccentric, are about to make the biggest investment of their young lives. But for these investors to get paid off, the American housing market must fully collapse and lay waste to the financial lives of countless Americans.
McKay’s film is as brash and bold as its characters. On the surface, The Big Short is a story of various groups of successful white men finding a flaw in the markets and exploiting it despite the fact that nobody sees what they do. But McKay and co-writer Charles Randolph fill the film with indignation towards the betrayal of America by these institutions. Time and time again, the machinations of Wall Street are explained to the audience – often in very amusing ways, like Margot Robbie in a bathtub explaining how mortgage bonds work – as a way to demystify their near-impenetrable façade. Many times characters break the fourth wall and explain what has been embellished for the sake of the film or to further illuminate the manner that Wall Street has fortified itself with jargon to confuse the common man. Other times, McKay presents the film’s action in an almost documentary-like style, playing with framing and focus like it’s all happening in the moment.
The Big Short is about the working class citizens that were duped, though the story itself is about Wall Street insiders. During a fact finding mission in Florida, Baum and his men are able to see just how perilously close to collapse the housing market is. When they encounter two mortgage brokers living high on the hog, explaining in detail all they do to put people into unsustainable loans, Baum is incensed yet shocked that they’re so forthright with this information. “They’re not confessing,” Baum’s colleague informs him. “They’re bragging.” Arrogance is everywhere in The Big Short, from the small time mortgage brokers to the executives at the big banks who scoff at the notion that they may have built their companies and entire American economy on a foundation of quicksand. Whether you could call any of the main characters heroes, I’m not so sure, but the fact is they knew how fragile and corrupt the system was before it came crashing to the ground, leaving nothing behind but misery for millions of people.
As he’s done with his comedic films, Adam McKay does a wonderful job with his expansive ensemble cast. Many of the headlining stars don’t share screen time together in the film, but that doesn’t diminish their impact as a whole. Christian Bale gives a smart, subtle performance as the man who discovered the impending crisis first. He’s a man driven by past trauma, a childhood illness which left him with a glass eye, and sticks to his guns as everyone around him threatens to pull out their money from his firm or take him to court. Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling is somewhat out of place as the greedy Wall Street broker who wants to exploit the weakness for cold hard profit. He comes across like a Jordan Belfort-lite, yet Gosling is never so far over his head that he drowns.
As the young investors, Finn Whitrock and John Magaro are the big surprises of The Big Short. New to the world of Wall Street, the two young guns are funny and charming as they seek a life changing payout. The standout performance of The Big Short though is Steve Carell. His character Mark Baum is the moral center of the film, a man driven by outrage and who isn’t always the most easygoing when it comes to confrontation. Carell is less showy than he was in last year’s Foxcatcher, but it allows the actor to truly encapsulate his character without the use of distracting prosthetics or accents. It’s a performance that balances the film’s underlying comedic tone and overt dramatic implications.
The Big Short proves that Adam McKay isn’t just a comedic filmmaker, but a sharp director with a keen sensibility towards a varying number of subjects. With this film he reminds us at every available chance that the people behind the assembly and destruction of the house of cards that propped up the American economy have gone unpunished for their crimes. The arrogance of these institutions have remained unchecked despite their failings. And the language of The Big Short doesn’t draw any difference between the stock market and the roulette wheel – both are a form of gambling in the film’s vision – and this is further illustrated in a scene in Las Vegas where the regulators are seeking jobs with the banks they’re supposed to oversee. We should be angry. We should demand justice. But not all calls to justice have to be terse dramas devoid of entertainment value. As a film, The Big Short was a gamble from a filmmaker typically associated with one genre. It paid off. If only we could make justice angle pay off as well.