Betting big against America

Steve Carrell and Ryan Gosling star in "The Big Short." Image courtesy Paramount Pictures.

Every film recapping the market crash from 2008 is brimming with venom. Those films – from fictionalized accounts to documentaries – have a plethora of bad guys to choose, people who can serve as the closest approximation to scapegoats available given the dearth of arrests or justice. (Really, how hard is it to find a villain among a bunch of arrogant, unscrupulous, well-groomed sharks?)

The newest look back at last decade’s chaos, “The Big Short,” has more than enough scoundrels to pick from, but, as the film points out, but there weren't exactly a lot of heroes in this situation either. None of the characters in the film (which is based Michael Lewis’ book) do much more than feel some guilt about their actions and put in one token attempt to report the shenanigans to the press. Rather, much like the characters from “Dr. Strangelove,” they seem pretty content to watch the world burn around them. The true anger about the economic destruction belongs to the men behind the camera, who sadly let their ire get the better of them.

“The Big Short” spends most of its time a few years before the crash and splitting time between three sets of investors. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale), an aloof fellow in possession of a brilliant mind and just a hint of an ego (he prefers to be addressed as “Dr. Michael Burry”) is the first to spot a notable weakness in the subprime mortgage market. Realizing the end of the market is near, Bale takes out more than a billion dollars in credit default swaps, effectively betting millions of Americans wouldn't pay their loans. The deal trickles down to oily investor and film narrator Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), who wants in on the action but needs money to join in. He eventually stumbles upon cynical hedge fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) and his team (Jeremy Strong, Rafe Spall and Hamish Linklater) who work under the auspices of Morgan Stanley, and presents an economic opportunity that appears too good to be true. But a little research and a trip to Florida reveals the danger in the market, and provides Carrell and his team ample motivation to invest in credit default swaps. The final side of the triangle consists of aspiring investors Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), who desperately want a seat at the table with the big boys but don't have the experience or the capital to earn it. That is until they catch wind of Gosling’s proposal and recruit retired trader Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to assist them. All that's left then is for the players to wait and see if their forecasts are correct.

While the film is presented in a linear fashion, the filmmaking is not as straightforward. Characters repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to offer short asides to the audience or redirect viewers to a few celebrities, and several clips of pop culture moments infiltrate the screen to point out how easily distracted the American people were at the time. Director Adam McKay takes an absurd approach to the material, which fits the absurdity of the events that actually occurred. Like its spiritual forefather “Dr. Strangelove,” is organized chaos, and while not all of it succeeds, enough lands to keep the film engaging for more than two hours, and the little tricks showcase McKay's distinct voice and sensibilities, along with a bite he hasn't shown often in his comedic films.

That bite ends up souring the film, especially when McKay's rage starts to boil over. The man is very, very angry about what happened, angry that the people responsible effectively got away with it and have already rebooted the same practices that led to the last collapse. The problems arise when the McKay and his fellow screenwriters begin to let that frustration seep into the filmmaking – a few bits of dialogue have a strong “mad as hell” vibe to them – that diminishes the “Big Short” as a film. It’s why the film suffers, and the reason “Dr. Strangelove” makes for such a strong point of comparison. Both films find humor from humanity's eagerness to destroy itself, but while “Dr. Strangelove” embraces the farce and let’s the insanity speak for itself, “The Big Short” is just pissed off by it and can’t help but rant and rave about the injustice. Even if the anger is justified as it is in this case, it just isn’t a very good means of storytelling; yelling at the audience to wake up is condescending no matter how good the intentions are.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 130 minutes

Genre: Biographical

Ask Away

Target audience: People still peeved at the people who caused the economy to fall asunder and the system that let it happen.

Take the whole family?: A fair amount of cursing and nudity earns this a solid “R” rating. Only bring the kids if you play an extended game of earmuffs and cover their eyes with a free hand.

Theater or Netflix?: You might be better served waiting for the streaming version. Hit up a matinee screening though if you do opt to see it in theaters.

Academy Award chances?: It has a strong shot to get Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay nominations in the very near future, and Adam McKay might sneak in for Best Director. Any major awards beyond that could be tough, as the Best Supporting Actor field is crazy deep (Christian Bale has a chance per Oscar tracking sites, although it is a volatile category).

Watch this as well?: The documentary “Inside Job” does a terrific job navigating the complexities of the fall while holding a few of the major players accountable for their deeds. Also seek out one of McKay's previous ventures, “The Other Guys,” which touches on the economic collapse, as well as the raucous, insanely funny and dispiriting “The Wolf of Wall Street.”