Index | 6 reviews in total |
Reviewed by Larry Gleeson. Viewed during the AFI Filmfest 2015.
"The Big Short," directed by Adam McKay, based on the book by Michael
Lewis, was adapted by McKay and Charles Randolph and made its world
premiere Thursday, November 12, 2015 at the historic TCL Grauman's
Chinese Theater as the closing night film for the latest edition of the
American Film Institute's AFI FEST film festival.
The film's narrative is driven by four cynical, fringe Wall Street
entities disgusted with the large banking institutions' overriding
greed for profits. They make the decision to capitalize on the ensuing
housing market calamity and the financial meltdown of 2008 upon
discovering the market frenzy is being driven by worthless collateral
debt obligations.
McKay chooses to inject a significant dose of humor in the early scenes
to condition the audience receptors for what they are about to
experience. Utilizing the Martin Scorsese docudrama style in a similar
setting with "Wolf of Wall Street," a strong narrative voice dominates
particular moments. Several of these deliberately break the 'Fourth
Wall" in the style of "Wolfie," Jordan Belfort, as the characters,
including a hilarious cameo by Selena Gomez, speak directly into the
camera to explain the complexities of Wall Street finance. The overall
effect adds additional humor and adds another layer in creating a sense
of authenticity and truth about the film's subject matter.
After a rather lengthy dizzying, yet delightful, character
introduction, the film picks up pace as the drama begins to unfold. Dr.
Michael Burry, an eccentric financial analyst, with complete autonomy
of an investment fund, uncovers variables in his economic forecast
indicating a massive housing market collapse. He informs his higher up,
Lawrence Fields, played convincingly by Tracy Letts, of his discovery
and creates a financial prospectus. In essence, he creates a commodity
of selling short on bundled mortgages.
The bankers laugh as they willingly sell Burry all the "insurance" he
wants. Word quickly spreads of Burry's perceived madness in a
after-work cocktail scene. With interest piqued upon overhearing the
Wall Street gossip of the day, Jarred Bennett, portrayed by Ryan
Gosling, scoops up the essence of Burry's move. Soon, he sells a group
led by Steve Carell's all-too-human, Mark Baum to buy in.
As the debacle is in full free-fall, Baum struggles with disbelief as
he and his group have bet against their own umbrella entity, Morgan
Stanley. The final team that has uncovered the impending financial
crisis, made up of two Wall Street neophytes and veteran Ben Rickert,
played by one of the film's producers, Brad Pitt, also struggles with
the imploding financial system caused by corporate greed and
indifference.
With a mammoth cast, McKay draws on a plethora of talent in the likes
of Hollywood A-listers including Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Selena Gomez,
Christian Bale, Karen Gillan Steve Carell, Marisa Tomei, Melissa Leo
and Finn Wittrock. McKay and Randolph create characters with witty
dialogue coupled with complementary cinematography provided by Barry
Ackroyd. The soundtrack carries a similar tone of "Wolf of Wall
Street," with a compilation of classic rock anthems. Nicholas Britell
widely recognized for his work on Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave,"
where Britell composed on set the on-screen violin performances, work
songs, dances and spiritual songs rarely misses a beat this time out.
Much like another AFI FEST 2015 film, "The Clan," Argentina's official
entry to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Best Foreign
Language Category for Oscar, "The Big Short," musical score is often in
juxtaposition to the the narrative and mies-en-scene adding a deeper
visceral quality to the viewing experience.
In its most basic essence, "The Big Short," builds on the visceral
truth of Scorsese's "Wolf of Wall Street." It depicts a not-so-long-ago
present where a noble ideal, making home ownership a reality for
Americans, is bastardized by the indifferent market forces of
capitalism. Probably not what Adam Smith had in mind when he penned his
treatise, "The Wealth of Nations." Warmly Recommended.
Don't know how Adam McKay made deplorable humans, blinding fear,
gut-boiling outrage and gleeful shaming so much fun to watch. He
brought along his bag o' laffs but planted them in such rich soil so we
had to hack our way through the thick underbrush of tainted greenbacks
and marked decks.
Everyone's in top form. Didn't recognize Brad Pitt for awhile. Ryan
Gosling funniest. Christian Bale let us feel his pain and lonely
genius. Steve Carell dug deep and came up with a real mensch.
Nice to see Marisa Tomei, Hamish Linklater, John Magaro, Rafe Spall,
Finn Wittrock, Max Greenfield and talented others working at a solid
level.
I walked out of the Westwood Bruin Theater in awe and mad as hell.
Comedy is tragedy + time, right? We're now over 7 years out from the
apex of the American financial crisis, which spiraled outward across
the world, and yet what has really changed? People are still making
millions/billions off the suffering of others, corporate control reigns
supreme, fraud is common and remains largely unknown, wealth continues
to be ever more concentrated in the grasp of a few, and the remainder
of the populace are treated as proverbial rats and made to feel uncouth
should they question the system and question not wanting to live their
lives playing this sadistic game. Taking 2 pennies and selling them to
someone for a hundred dollars remains a legal activity, just call those
pennies by a different name and suddenly it's okay to pass them off as
fair market.
It doesn't sound funny at all, but The Big Short succeeds in turning
this demented and corrupt circus into something improbably hilarious
and probing. The power of comedy is its ability to let us see something
from a different viewpoint, allow us to process it in ways we wouldn't
have been able to otherwise. As we might laugh at children for the
hilariously unaware things they say and do, so too will humankind in
the future hopefully laugh at how completely pathetic and ignorant our
present society has been. Martin Scorsese opened the flap up into the
circus entrance with "The Wolf of Wall Street" and, while making good
points, was perhaps a bit too concerned with his own technique and had
a bit too much indulgence reveling in the frivolity of it all. The Big
Short completely blows the top of the circus and dissects it in every
way, starting with the widespread fraud and greed in business, and then
examining how it has seeped into our entire existences. Even the good
guys here are ultimately out there to make money, lots of it. Isn't
that what society tells us we must to do, in order to be valuable? It's
sick.
McKay's approach here is "throw everything in, including the kitchen
sink" and that creates an energetic, brilliantly matched representation
of the subject matter. This does not mean he is lacking control,
however. The story being told includes so many facets and characters
that it easily could have fallen into disarray, but McKay makes every
single character memorable and illuminates every piece of jargon that
could be confusing from the outset. It's a huge accomplishment and a
far more important one than might seem apparent. The things that were
allowed to happen in the realms of business, finance, and banking are
absolutely INSANE and unbelievable. It has to be largely comedic
because there's no other way of delivering this vast amount of
information and complete failure of our entire society and make it all
snap into place so continuously, without being ripped apart by the
overwhelming darkness of it all. This isn't simply circumstantial and
theoretical and mysterious to a degree, as in Oliver Stone's "JFK", but
the cold hard truth.
It's not enough to even ask for the truth anymore and ask for answers,
we need to question the entire system, a whole web of poisonous bonds
that have tightly wound themselves so entirely around us. The work of
the film itself is allowing us to project our thoughts, our fears, our
anger, and our confusions into this convoluted conundrum. All while
being told the truth, so that we at least have a place to even start
down the correct path of understanding. It's acting as our own
investigative journey in a time when actual news and journalism has
become a tiny spec of its former self. We now have more information
than ever available to us, yet it's often so shrouded and twisted as to
become unrecognizable. There are still those who fear education for
what it would do to their own position in life, how it would challenge
their own reality. We are still held under the thumb of "greed is
good", "thinking you're inherently better is good", "vanity is good".
The shiny mainstream hallmarks of a typical Hollywoood commercial
product - the agreeable lighting and manicured actors and tidy
locations - are so perfectly representative in this film of the
emptiness within the characters and indeed in our entire society. After
all the progress we think we've made towards world peace and human
rights and medical advances and the stability of the human race, have
we lost sight of what a fulfilling life and a world of justice should
really be? Aren't we still captive to the same pointless rituals and
superficialities, doesn't a veritable monarch and royal court still
control most everything? We are now living our lives working for
something that can be wiped out with the stroke of a keyboard. We are
told something of monetary worth that is non-existent, for all intents
and purposes, is something we should strive for. Making a bet on the
outcome of another bet is a whole industry. The non-existent and
ridiculous and pointless directly hurts the lives of many.
The Big Short is one of the most important films of this era and one of
the best. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. It is an
illumination, a magical pairing of a director's sensibility to exactly
the correct form that most fully allows it to blossom and hold water.
It is water which the film warns us will be the next basic human
necessity to be denied by those few who hold power.
I will keep the review simple. Although some of the financial jargon went over my head, i would say Adam McKay is a genius, to make a movie about the financial crisis this much entertaining, funny and touching that's a feat only few filmmakers can pull off, and a lot of that has to do with the tremendous cast of this movie. The Big Short has a large ensemble cast but focuses on four major players who benefited in various ways from betting against the American economy. Steve Carell gives one of the best performance of his career, Christian bale portrays the awkward lonely genius with ease. Ryan gosling is slick over the top and funny in this movie he also makes the whole thing much more interesting. Brad Pitt is kind of a good guy and the moral center. This is a must see, and needs multiple viewings to truly appreciate.
Two words..Christian bale...he brings in another great performance this time.He somehow makes us feel the brilliance,pathetic situation and life style of people to show what it takes to make it in wall street in a real life not over the top life styles in wall street,wolf of wall street and American psycho(no pun intended).Steve Carrell shows humanity at its finest in current world...lets be real no one is Buddha in the current world..but to be a successful person in wall street with humanity you can be as close to Steve Carrell ad you can get.Brad Pitt is good.Ryan gosling felt over the top and some times he appeared as if he was not ready to deliver Adam Mckay's dialogue.But for the most part he was believable.Adam Mckays direction and screenplay was crisp.Over all you can watch the movie twice to get a good grip and its worth watching.
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
The Big Short tells one story too many and feels jumpy and haphazard
especially since the characters in each storyline never intersect.
It's really three movies in one and would have been better served by
being two stories well told.
With a frenetic "turn five cameras on and let the actors improv" style,
the film's hyperactive chattiness completely strips the emotion from
every scene. It's all pretty headache inducing to be honest.
The film also has 10 minutes of unnecessary exposition done with a
"wink wink" style that makes you not even pay attention to what's being
said. For a second it feels clever until you realize that the content
really is superfluous, interrupts the narrative, and pulls you out of
the film.
For me, the Big Short's final nail is the overly-preachy ending where
the film revels in its own self-importance.
The performances are GREAT, however, with Steve Carell destined for an
Oscar nom. Ryan Gosling shows some real talent. Wait for Redbox on this
one.
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