The Big Short is the most fun you’ll have watching the world economy collapse

Paramount Features

I remember when the housing crisis happened way back when George W. Bush was still president. Blame was shared all around, depending on who was talking. Banks, traders, house owners, funds, the government, Bush, Cheney, the Democrats … really I heard it all. But slowly it did seem to become clear that yes, some people saw it coming. So why didn’t anyone do anything? Turns out, they did.

The Big Short comes from comedy director Adam McKay, but unlike his other films, this is based on a true, terrible story about how the economy crashed in the late 00’s. The movie has a huge cast of characters, all ably played by a lot of very talented people. It’s adapted from the (non-fictional) book of the same name by Michael Lewis, and it makes a few changes to the narrative, not that I really noticed as it went along. We start with a look at Michael Burry (Christian Bale, playing it weird again), a hedge fund manager who predicts the impending housing collapse due to shady mortgage practices and other warning signs.

Because he’s kind of weird and awkward, and when he takes his plans to “short” the economic downfall to several large investment firms, they eagerly take his money, thinking they’re taking advantage of him. After all, the housing market is super stable, right? So we know he stands to make a lot of money, but the movie does a good job making it seem tense and unclear if he’ll pull off his scheme.

A few other interconnected characters dip in and out of the story, like Mark Baum (Steve Carell), a hedge fund manager with a dim view of the world. His plans are cynical but effective, gaining the help of trader Jared Vennet (Ryan Gosling), who often acts as a narrator to many parts of the movie.

This is very helpful, as many of the economic concepts are quite confusing, but the movie plays a few tricks, like having celebrity cameos show up to explain esoteric ideas about those various economic tricks. No spoilers, but there’s one scene involving a bathtub that may change your perspectives on collateralized debt obligations.

Brad Pitt is also being promoted as a major character, but he really isn’t in it much, mainly providing a sort of guru status to another set of characters, Jamie Shipley and Charlie Geller (Finn Wittrock and John Magaro), who are a young pair of traders that also see the collapse coming. Their storyline, while often entertaining, perhaps was the least useful to the narrative as a whole.

The movie goes through a few different types of genres as it moves forward, which is a bit of a knock on it. There’s a kind of heist Ocean’s 11 type of idea about our “heroes” taking money from the various investment banks, but there is still the knowledge that it is affecting people and their homes. The movie does take the time to show off a bit of pathos with showing how badly things are going for some people and how badly many banks have been acting. Then of course, Mark Baum’s arc is really quite poignant and sad, that despite him being right, he’s also right about the economy failing, which means a lot of people will be hurt.

A cast this big and stories this varied means not everything will work. The two young traders aren’t really as interesting except as sort of corollary subplots, and some of the investigative subplots go on a bit long. But any time Ryan Gosling starts talking to the audience or Steve Carell gets apoplectic with rage, that’s pretty great. It’s odd that a movie about such a horrible time for so many people is fun, but that’s the trick going on here. It’s entertainment disguising education, often literally. I think most people (and I count myself in this group) don’t really get what happened to cause the housing collapse.

We hear words like “subprime” but it’s hard to really grasp what that means. With a combination of great acting, clever writing, and clever editing, The Big Short actually makes it fun to learn again, while probably leading you to the conclusion the filmmakers were hoping for: that you’re really angry that they could really do this all again, and almost nobody paid for their actions.

By the end, you’ll probably be just as angry and sad as Steve Carell’s character, but then again, you probably had fun doing it. I know I did.