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Yes, the pre-release hype is correct: this is not your father’s financial crisis film. It’s also not known as “The Wolf of Wall Street” or anything similar. In this film, the money masters of the universe (and while their stories are intertwined, their lives are not necessarily) barely consume enough red wine to get a good buzz. Their high is derived from an enhanced sense of smell, which they have. “Wolf”-like characters are represented by Ryan Gosling’s Jared Vennett, who is the most stereotypical suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch. Part of his schtick is to stand in the corner, sniffing ostentatiously, because, yes, he smells money in a conference room.
The money smelt and earned by the adventurers in this story of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is, in some ways, tainted by bad karma, according to the characters. The film “The Big Short,” based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis, tells the story of how several traders and hedge fund managers made fortunes by correctly predicting that the housing market’s decline would result in the collapse of bonds derived from sub-prime mortgages. The terminology is both dry and bewildering, and the machinations are incredibly complex and intricate. The central thesis of the story, which has been adapted for the screen by director Adam McKay and his co-screenwriter Charles Randolph, is that as banking rose to become the most important industry in the United States, bankers purposefully devised complex financial instruments whose primary function was to help the wealthy become even wealthier while screwing the poor. This film will undoubtedly receive a great deal of criticism, with many people questioning “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off criticizing income inequality.” However, this does not necessarily imply that the film is incorrect.
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The Big Short Quiz
The film, which is both entertaining and engaging while also being horrifying, might be better referred to as “American Horror Story,” a title that might be more appropriate. Three distinct storylines are intertwined throughout the film. Christian Bale’s Michael Burry is the focus of the first film, which follows a trained physician with severely impaired social skills who, thanks to his prowess in analysis and number crunching, ends up running a very successful West Coast hedge fund. As a result of discovering some terrifying data within the structures of a large number of mortgage bonds, he comes up with a radical idea: to “short,” or to bet against, the housing bond market, which has been inflated by the banks to the point of appearing unassailable. In order to accomplish this, he must persuade those financial institutions to develop a new financial instrument, akin to a bond insurance policy. If Burry is correct and the stock market crashes, he and his hedge fund will make a lot of money. However, as long as the market remains stable, Burry and his fund are obligated to pay out a lot of money in premiums, which they cannot afford.
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In addition to directing comedic fare such as “Anchorman,” McKay has also directed films with a sly underlying intelligence. That intelligence is on display in this film in the form of celebrity cameos in which attractive people such as Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of terms such as “sub-prime.” As a financial Prophet of Doom, Gosling enlists the help of “Anchorman” rep company member Steve Carell, who plays Mark Baum, whose own fund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of the action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s character, who engages in self-torture, is probably the closest thing this film has to a directorial surrogate. ‘Jim Henson’s Hedge Fund Babies’ stars Finn Wittrock and John Magaro as a couple of young hedge fund analysts who are mentored by Brad Pitt’s Ben Rickert. Interestingly, Pitt’s character Rickert can be read as a slight parody of his current do-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who quit the game out of displeasure and who now preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two young acolytes while simultaneously assisting them in becoming extremely wealthy.
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I was a little skeptic about this film at first because the main characters’ hairstyles and clothing were more reminiscent of a ’90s music video than an early 2000s film, and the occasionally color-degraded flashbacks to some of the characters’ back stories were a little on the dreary side. Although much of the dialogue was profane, the narrative momentum and the committed acting going on beneath the hairpieces all worked together to create a compelling storyline and an entertaining film. And they conveyed the angry, pessimistic conviction that underlies the film, which is that the major banks were all involved in fraudulent, criminal activity, that the United States government bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there is no indication that the banks will not engage in something similar to the exact same thing all over again. You have the right to disagree. However, this is a film that makes its point through the use of both cinematic art and irrefutable facts. It’s a powerful substance.
For more personality quizzes check this: How To Be Single Quiz.
