Review of The Big Short (2015) by Jhep — 29 Dec 2015

“The Big Short or "A Funny Thing Happened On My Way to the Global Economic Meltdown”.

THE HEDGE FUND MANAGER AS FOLK HERO…..Okay, okay, the idea may call for a little tweaking at first glance but in today’s topsy-turvy world where- as Chris Hedges points out- almost every public institution has morphed into its opposite and become its own nemesis, this hedge-fund-manager-as-folk-hero idea might not be all that strange......In any event film maker Adam McKay makes a compelling, indeed fascinating case for this in his new film “The Big Short”.

The film is based on the Michael Lewis’ book “The Big Short; Inside the Doomsday Machine” and Adam McKay‘s film adaptation has wisely chosen to turn the story into a David and Goliath fable about “the little Hedge Fund that could”. The result is a parable of daring existential savvy and “cojones” triumphing over institutionalized corruption and tunnel vision; the sort of thing Kierkegaard or Albert Camus would applaud in a nanosecond, and although not quite your by-the-numbers Robin Hood caper, then at least something sufficiently “Robin Hood-ish” to have something for everyone to take heart about (i.e., the previously mentioned Little-Hedge-Fund-That-Could angle).

Incongruous as all of this may sound, the end result is an extraordinary cinematic and political delight from start to finish and is even (somehow?) perfect Christmas/Holiday Season fare. McKay’s innovative direction and his extraordinarily inspired cast keep things percolating at just the right, slightly off-kilter and wacky tempo. Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt (one of the film’s producers) and Ryan Gosling are all clearly on board with McKay’s Smartest-Guys-in-the-Room interpretation of events that what ultimately comes across is a sort of Lord-of-the-Rings-Comes-to-Wall-St. epic that is the movie equivalent of a real page-turner ! It would be a serious mistake to dismiss “The Big Short” as some kind of “feel good” exercise about small time hedge fund types taking big risks and hitting the jack pot because this very unusual film is far more than a quirky comedy or satire. When the dust finally settles what we have here is actually passionate, scathing and somehow monumental indictment not only of Wall St. but (even more courageous to state and more worrisome to consider) the outrageous complicity of elected officials who chose to do the bidding of their “Too-Big-To-Fail” banking overseers…..“Wall St. got bailed out, Main Street got sold out !” as the popular chant goes. The SEC/Security Exchange Commission, as well as the credit rating agencies Standard and Poors and Moody’s (see photo below) come in for more than a few well-deserved, well-aimed body blows.

“ Big Short” is an important film about what is arguably THE major struggle of our times: (a dismantled, downsized nominal democracy versus an insatiable and rapacious oligarchy). It also happens to be a work so strangely compelling that you will probably end up committing large chunks of it to memory after 2 or 3 viewings due to the fact that it regales us with such an audacious handling of its material - real gusto, passion and a sense of outrage rarely seen these days. What the viewer experiences is not unlike watching someone making their way over Niagara Falls on a tightrope: you hold your breath, wrestle with the impulse to cover your eyes and yet- through the whole ordeal- welcome every moment with real gratitude (psychologist Abraham Maslow’s idea that our perception of Truth helps to keep us sane and healthy probably kicks in here somewhere.).

This is also one of the most cinematically and politically FEARLESS films you’ll ever see; every gamble the script makes (and there are many) and every wildly intuitive hunch the direction takes (and there many) pays off totally…. nothing is overstated, no shot is held for even a nanosecond too long…our interest never flags….You would have to go back to Robert Altman on a very good day I.e., “Nashville”..….or Godard or Truffaut or Woody Allen on a good day to find a film this innovative.

What we end up watching in “The Big Short” is a story that is stranger than fiction and yet one that unfolds, is tried-and-true fairy tale tradition, with a cast of spellbound couriers, mysterious ancestral curses and wise old and not-so-old sages….in short the world that History itself appears to have been keeping in store for us now uber-challenged 21st century residents of planet Earth. All of this Adam McKay has chosen to direct with a gusto and panache that borders on audacity. Fortunately a kind of grace seems to hover over his every directorial decision and the result is dazzling and at times mesmerizing. We end up cheering for these underdog hedge fund managers who have thrown caution to the winds and risked everything on the use of their wits....as well as for a gifted American film maker and artist named Adam McKay who can so clearly empathize with them.