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‘Big Short’ Bearish on Compelling Drama

(Very) nice try, but it wasn’t enough.

“The Big Short,” based on Michael Lewis’ bestseller breaking down that fiscal calamity, doesn’t just leave out key details. It forgets it’s a movie, not a Technicolor op-ed. That leaves us with some impressive storytelling devices begging to be plugged into something substantial.

McKay snares today’s hippest stars, including Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling, to make sure we’re paying attention. A lecture is a lecture is a lecture, no matter how many bubbles Robbie pops in the process.

The Big Short Official Trailer #1 (2015) - Brad Pitt, Christian Bale Drama Movie HD
Bale gets the showiest role as Michael Burry, a seemingly autistic soul who makes a wild bet against the housing industry. He thinks it’s gonna come a’ tumbling down. He doesn’t mind throwing millions at his calculated hunch.

Meanwhile, a few other Wall Streeters suspect the same thing. The mortgage bubble is about to burst, big time. They want to cash in. Heck, everyone in the film does, too, save Brad Pitt’s character. More on him in a moment.

McKay captures it all with a series of pop culture mashups, celebrity drop-ins (Selena Gomez! Anthony Bourdain!) and sanctimonious hand-held camera work. The latter reminds us how serious the material actually is.

It’s a condescending approach to the crisis. A more assured storyteller could deliver the bad news without the bubbles, bells and whistles. Take away those trinkets, and there’s precious little to keep us engaged.

ALSO CHECK OUT: ‘We the Economy’ Praises Gov’t Run Health Care

Yet, amazingly, “The Big Short” grabs us … for a while. All that slick editing, fancy name dropping and top flight actors grab our attention. It’s all stirred together to foment our anger at the system.

Outraged yet? Wait. “The Big Short” is just warming up. It’s like an ABBA reunion tour playing the same great song in different keys. No matter how mesmerizing the melody, we soon lose interest.

Christian-Bale-The-Big-Short-movie-review-toto
Christian Bale plays Michael Burry in ‘The Big Short’

What “The Big Short” doesn’t do, surprisingly enough, is bash specific politicians or even entire parties at great length. Yes, McKay is one of the industry’s most outspoken liberals who puts progressive talking points in the strangest places. Heck, he turned the end credits for “The Other Guys” into an anti-Wall Street screed.

Here, he tries to blame the system and the cretins eager to profit from it. That leaves us with few people to root for in this grim-a-thon. At least Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” had the good sense to show us a grand ol’ time while millions got financially ruined.

DID YOU KNOW: ‘The Big Short’ author Michael Lewis is married to Tabitha Soren, best known for her stint as an MTV news correspondent. They have three children.

McKay doesn’t bother to mention that millions of people looked at their own sketchy finances and signed on those dotted lines in the first place. Or how the federal government used its pressure to coax banks to lend to people who didn’t have the means to pay back these loans in the first place.

instead, the movie glibly claims people blamed “poor people” for the fiscal mess, a dishonest statement that’s no laughing matter.

Pitt’s appearance as a crunchy capitalist is a kissing cousin to his “12 Years a Slave” turn. Both show up as wizened souls who can see above the current crisis. It’s hopelessly self-serving from an actor capable of much more.

“The Big Short” feels like bad medicine followed by a gulp of HI-C fruit punch. It’s certainly not an engrossing tale. We see few dramatic arcs of consequence during its 130 minute run, and of course we know what happens in the end. Turns out all those bubble bath takes went for naught.

One Comment

  1. Your assessment is absolutely correct. I am quite progressive, but I just came out of the movie raging mad. It’s overtly preachy. It reminded me of a college lecture dipped in fruit syrup for hungover students at a Big 10 university. The camerwork and editing left me incredibly dizzy and I nearly walked out twenty minutes in. The movie preaches so much yet it lacks any focus in addressing the problem. I actually enjoyed The Wolf of Wall Street which had the benefit of a fascinating central character, string screenplay, and a legendary director. The Big Short lacked in subletly, character and worst of all… STORY. I do believe that Wall Street is full of crooks, but come on, the crash was not as one-sided as it was portrayed to be. So many people were responsible. McKay’s failure to paint a balanced portrait also detracted from the narrative

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