The Big Short

The Academy Award nominees for Best Picture were announced last Thursday and there was only one film that I hadn't seen (see my reviews of Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, Bridge of Spies, Room, Spotlight, Brooklyn, and The Revenant).  Since I always like to see all of the nominees before the ceremony, I crossed The Big Short off my list last night.  When I graduated from college in 1990, many of my contemporaries, who were just beginning their careers and making approximately the same amount of money as I was, bought big and expensive homes.  I couldn't understand how people my age could afford to live in the same type of neighborhood as my parents.  They couldn't.  Many were given subprime loans (they didn't have to meet income and credit score requirements) and had adjustable-rate mortgages (mortgages would reset with higher interest rates causing much higher payments over time).  Eventually, people who could no longer afford their monthly payments were forced to sell these expensive homes or they defaulted on their loans which, in part, lead to a nationwide banking crisis and recession.  The Big Short follows a group of industry outsiders who predicted that banks would lose money from their collateralized debt obligations (don't worry if you don't understand these complicated banking terms because there are celebrity cameos, such as Selena Gomez, who explain them to the audience) once people began defaulting on their mortgages.  Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is an antisocial genius who figures out a way to profit from the situation and risks his clients' hedge fund on a hunch.  Mark Baum (Steve Carell) is a bombastic crusader out to right the wrongs he sees in the banking industry.  Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) are small-time investors who want in on the action but lack credentials and have to rely on their mentor Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt), a former banker who is paranoid about the collapse of the world economy and advises them to invest in seeds, to conduct their transactions.  Wall Street trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) is the ringmaster who connects all of the characters (and occasionally, and rather amusingly, speaks directly to the audience about what is going on).  The script is full of snappy dailogue and the performances are a lot of fun to watch.  Director Adam McKay uses fast cutting and montage sequences very effectively to create the frenetic energy and chaos of the crisis.  It is an incredibly entertaining film that is also a scathing indictment of the unscrupulous practices used by the banking industry; I laughed all the way through it and left the theater sick to my stomach.  I highly recommend it.