Review of The Big Short (2015) by Axet — 16 Jan 2016

The reason to see this is the cast of leads who are all good in their individual quirky character ways as well as the irreverent comedy made out of the Wall Street meltdown in 2008. It takes chances using offbeat conventions that are nothing new but unexpected for this subject. However it is horribly shot emulating a show like "The Office" and is fairly sloppily edited at least in the cutting sense. There is no reason ever to have that phony cinema vérité video look for a theatrical motion picture. It's an all too common dumb choice by filmmakers believing it makes it more real. Hey I'll watch "60 Minutes" if I want real!

Then again the director here has no sense of style, only a frat boy sense of humor. It's funny at times yeah and yet tackles the complex content surprisingly efficiently, and that comes close to overriding the annoyances. The Academy sheep didn't seem to mind them and nominated it best picture along with its slob director. Ironic since it's that very sheep like mentality that the film is critical of.