'The Big Short' review, starring Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt

[yasr_overall_rating]

For better or for worse, Adam McKay’s The Big Short refuses to settle down. Filled with as much zip in its step as it has boiling blood in its veins, this darkly comic examination of the housing crisis and financial crisis of 2007-2010 is relentlessly agitated, consistently invigorated and convulsively insistent piece of work. It’s possibly the most unsaturated A-list studded Hollywood release in years, and in many ways, that comes to its own advantage and disadvantage.

Based on Michael Lewis’ 2010 book of the same name, the greatest feather in the film’s cap is its attitude. It’s smart, unflinching, loud and unnerved — and often quite mercilessly funny to boot. Yet McKay’s film finds just the right balance of cocky and commonwealth to shine well enough. It knows how to strut its stuff, lay down the facts, the numbers and all that jazz, but it doesn’t let you, the common viewer, get too lost in the shuffle. Knowing full well everything is above almost everyone’s head — including those of screenwriters McKay and Charles Randolph, most likely — it lets inspired, unexpected cameos, Martin Scorsese-esque forth wall breaks, flashy, unfocused editing and unusual music cues do the real talking. And though many of these have been done to death at this point at the cinema — and also bring a few too many reminders of Scorsese’s own, superior The Wolf of Wall Street  — it lets you in on the action without having to dumb it down to a pulp.

The billion-dollar facts are all laid out, mind you, in their heavy, ECON 545 terms. But for once they’re also approachable, acceptable and pretty goddamn funny at times too — and they never distract from the story at hand. In fact, they only add to it, often quite proudly. Don’t expect this to be Inside Job 2, essentially. For The Big Short balances a lot of balls at once. From the perspectives of several key players in the credit default swap market that savagely bet against the Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) bubble, and ultimately sought to profit from the greatest global financial decline in history, McKay has a lot to chew from here. There's a great deal to keep toppled together without having all the pieces fall apart as rapidly as the economic market surrounding the film did itself, but McKay doesn't flinch for a second. This is the most confident and enthusiastic work he's done yet, and though it stronghold everything it grasps as tight as it would hope, it certainly knows how to keep its stacks held up high when it does itself right.

First there’s Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale), the shoeless, glass-eyed hedge fund manager who’s among the first to predict the crash and invest heavily into the impending subprime mortgage crisis. Then in the right corner, there’s Jared Vennett, the self-confident, quick-thinking Deutsche Bank trader who doubles down on the logic because he knows a strong invest when he hears it. He's willing to let a few others jump along for the grand prize, though, including Michael Baum (Steve Carell), a loud-mouthed, if also emotionally reserved, money manager who catches wind of all this by chance, alongside fellow Wall Street business suits Vinnie Daniel (Jeremy Strong), Danny Moses (Rafe Spall) and Porter Collins (Hamish Linklater). Coming in on the left corner, though, are Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), two bright-eyed, wannabe big-leagues who also, by "chance," hear about these impending crisis bubbles and want to get in on the action, through the help of investment advisor and financial recluse Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt, also a producer here). Everyone wants in on a piece of the crumbling average salary pie, but what cost does it all come for?

It’s a hell of an ensemble, and one that gets particularly everyone to shine. As fun as Strong, Pitt and Gosling are in their individual turns, The Big Short belongs almost exclusively to Carrell and Bale. Each bring their own sense of urgency and vulnerability to the story and their characters, and make you understand the weight of their decisions without having to sacrifice the movie’s hard-brazed integrity as a result. They’re commendably sophisticated and remarkably sorrowful performances, ones that combine the funny and the tragic of this situation in equal doses and help hook us into the spinning numbers and data crunches punching us in the face at every turn. Beyond all the quick quips and heartbreaking facts provided during this 130-minute odyssey into financial insanity, they are what keep the heart beating and the commentary sharp. McKay may have a persistently cynical movie on his hands, but they are what continue to give us hope, and what makes us feel the burden when it all comes crashing to its expected demise.

McKay expects us to swallow a lot here, and in his efforts, he isn’t always successful. The editing is a little too frantic, a little too madcap, for its own stability at times. At its best, it captures the thumping heart at the core of Wall Street’s “integrity,” but at times, it comes a little too fast and a little too showy for its own good. It distracts more than it adds, really. And its not to say that it isn’t without its merits, but it becomes a little too repetitive and a little too uncertain for it to really make the impact it deserves. Especially considering how it’s often the quieter, subtler moments that really stand out in the end. But McKay needs to have his message heard, and his sometimes vibrant, often near-abstract choices both differentiate enough from his previous directorial efforts like Step Brothers and the Anchorman movies and also keep your eyes and ears susceptible to knowing anything can change at any moment, for good or worse. And that’s really what’s key to its success in the end.

The Big Short is a dizzy, snippy, unkempt little movie, sure. It points a lot of fingers. It blames a lot of people. It shakes its fists a lot, and it yells at us for not paying attention and not taking a stand when we had the chance. But more than anything else, though, it brings everything down to simple, economic and, most of all, human terms. There’s too much passion in its blood, and piss and vinegar in its veins, to ignore. It’s clear McKay is angry, and he has every damn right to be — just like we do. And he does just that, while also bringing us along for a wild, hell-bent, unforgiving ride. A passion project for McKay for at least half a decade, you feel his inspiration, passion and frustration in every frame. This is the kind of movie that entertains you and sickens you at the same time, and deservedly so. It has an important, timely message in its hands, and not a lot of time to break it down for all its worth. It takes no prisoners, and it shouldn’t. It has a lot on its mind and not a lot of time to say everything it needs to say and — though it’s a little too busy and a little too unfocused at times — it gets to the heart of why we need to listen.

It’s provoked. It’s scared. It’s insult-prone. It’s hungry for redemption. It comes with its fists clenched, its jaw tightened and its body ready to pounce on anyone who stands in the way of what needs to be said. And above all else, it’s ready for change. The Big Short is a deep, unsettling nightmare of a movie, in exactly the ways it wants it to be, and it’s guaranteed to get people talking — and it'll keep them talking. For all its imperfections, it knows what it wants to say and it says a lot of those things with charm, gusto and aching pain to spare. It wants you to get mad. Really, really mad, in fact, and its not unsuccessful by any stretch. It may be a film attacking the one percent made by the one percent, sure, but it gets down to the bottom line and it knows how to make the most interest of its investments. That’s enough to make you want to chalk in some funds for the short-term — and long-term — payoff.