Wall Street, 2 0 0 5. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry calculates that the overrated housing market is going to crash in two years, based on data of the horrid mortgage loans, and thus decides to bet against the market: he invests hundreds of millions of $ in several banks and creates credit default swap. Soon, other managers hear about his ostensible folly: Mark Baum hears of it from Deutsche Bank salesman Jared and quickly sends his men to investigate. They find out that loans were given to people who cannot repay them, and that the housing market is oversaturated. Baum then also buys credit default swaps in millions of $. Two small time investors, Charlie and Jamie, follow suit, with the help of ex-Wall Street broker Ben. In 2 0 0 8, against all odds, their prediction comes true when the financial crisis breaks out due to this housing bubble. They earn a wealth of cash, but numerous people lose their jobs and income.
How many movies even mentioned the concept of credit default swap (CDO) before "The Big Short"? Did cinemagoers even know it existed before it? One of the most popular movies explaining the financial crash of 2007-2008, "The Big Short" is practically a thesis on economic bubbles and unknown financial instruments, whereas director Adam McKay and screenwriter Charles Randolph managed to somewhat 'decipher' all these abstract, high-concept finance terms and make them understandable in layman terms. Still, all of this is not very cinematic, since it plays out more like a PowerPoint presentation than a genuine storyline, which makes the film somewhat distant and hard to reach. Its narrative is very hybrid, defying the usual American "three-act structure", and some freshness stems from this approach.
One of the best moments is when McKay "breaks the fourth wall" and turns deliberately comical to liven up the dry-difficult topic: during a securitization conference, the annoyed Mark Baum (excellent Steve Carell) is sitting in the audience, raises his hand up and makes an "O" sign with his fingers, shouting: "Zero! There is a zero percent chance that your subprime losses will stop at five percent!" He then answers his mobile phone and walks away from the auditorium, while Jared (Ryan Gosling) looks directly into the camera and says: "Mark Baum really did that! When we were in Vegas, he did that! He said that, he took the call. Now you see what I had to deal with." Another great metafilm moment has a cook explaining CDO in his kitchen using recycled fish in a stew as a symbol for bonds or Selena Gomez explaining synthetic CDO via a poker game. Brad Pitt has a dignified small supporting role as a former broker who became a humanist, lamenting how everyone is always observing economy in numbers and statistics, and not in human terms, pointing out how for each additional "1 % of unemployment" there is an excess of 40,000 more deaths per year. While somewhat didactic and "far out" to get, "The Big Short" is a valuable, intelligent, sometimes delicious explanation of the major systematic problems of that type of housing market, contemplating that there simply is no infinite growth in economy and that a contraction comes is cycles.
Grade:+++
Grade:+++
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