The Big Short

Films based on true stories have become as prevalent and frequent as disaster films were in the 1970's. But what makes "The Big Short" different than most films 'based on a true story' is that this story is based on an outlandish premise that if one didn't see based on a true story at the beginning of the film, you'd swear it was pure fiction. This was a more dramatic view of an outrageous true story whereas "Pain & Gain", based on a true story was a lighter view of an outrageous film based on a true story. Did you get that?

This true story explores the 2008 financial crisis through the lens of four unorthodox moneymen, who foresaw the consequences of the fraudulent mortgage-lending practices of large banks on Wall Street. Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, a former hedge-fund manager who was one of the first to forecast the collapse of the credit bubble due to excessive subprime lending. Steve Carell is Mark Baum (based on the real-life Steve Eisman), a money manager who rose to fame after successfully betting against subprime mortgages. Ryan Gosling is Jared Vennett, a money/commodities investor who convinces Baum and his associates to basically bet against the banks in order to profit, and Brad Pitt plays Ben Rickert, an ex Wall Street investor who ends up mentoring both Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock). These two young investors find out that things don't seem up and up in the financial realm, so they consult with Rickert to help them win over the financial community in order to profit. All these investors have two motivating factors that catapult them to act upon this situation: 1) to expose 'Wall Street' for what it is and hopefully reap financially from it.

Others to round out the cast are Melissa Leo as Georgia Hale, Marisa Tomei as Cynthia Baum, Mark's wife, Jeremy Strong as Vinnie Daniel, Rafe Spall as Danny Moses, Hamish Linklater as Porter Collins, Karen Gillan as Evie, Tracy Letts as Lawrence Fields and Adepero Oduye as Kathy Tao.

This was surprisingly well directed by Adam McKay ("Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" '04, "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" '06, "Step Brothers" '08, "The Other Guys" '10, "Lifecasters" (TV movie documentary) '13, "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues" '13). I say surprisingly because this filmmaker's claim to fame are the light comedy fare you have seen, hence his resume. This is a drama, with some comedic relief, but a drama nonetheless. So his talent shines in that he was able to get these actors to convey the characters they're playing quite effectively despite this not being the genre he typically directs. It was equally well written by Charles Randolph and McKay based on the book by Michael Lewis. What's interesting about this is the fact that the film begins in the year 2005, where it introduces us to the different characters and slowly how they caught on to an insightful outlook of the banks coming up with these bogus mortgage bonds that the public were getting conned into, and then as the years progress, the more others were jumping on the bandwagon to expose and try to benefit from the greed of the bankers. Instead of starting at 2008 and trusting its audience that they will easily catch on to the ludicrous stance of the bankers, these writers pursued their audience with a screenplay delineating slowly how this outlandish story actually took place. There were a couple of places of the lack of some cohesiveness, but all in all, this script rocked! The smart move was choosing one writer (Randolph) who is mostly a dramatic writer and (McKay) who predominantly writes comedy. This definitely made for an effective combination. And both Bales's and Carell's performances were captivating and mesmerizing. Carell fairs so much better in the genre of drama, that I wish he would perform more in it.

While this was coming down all around us back in 2008-09, it was so devastating to so many people that this story simply had to be told. So when one goes to see this, it will graphically detail what actually happened to all of those people's money.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                                 Rated: R                                    130mins.