The Big Short is being billed as a comedy, which is funny. Hilarious, really.
Yes, it has some funny lines and devices, but it’s a tragic film and an essential one every American should see.
Director Adam McKay doesn’t need green screens and CGI magic to depict catastrophe and humanity put on the brink, he just needs a cast of banksters and greedy Wall Street goons in suits with computers, placing bets and rigging financial markets with bogus financial instruments. The film’s shot with a lively pace and curious camera showing how the sleight of hand of pop culture infatuation lulls us into complacency as visions of The American Dream are manufactured out of whisper-thin air.
Sure, the financial rigamarole hocus pocus is complex stuff, but the script by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay breaks it down into palatable chunks you’ll comprehend. And when you put all the pieces together, you see the inevitable train wreck coming. When it finally occurs, you’ll wonder how and why it was allowed to happen.
And why in the hell just one person went to jail.
The fix was in. The fix is still in. Too big to fail is now bigger and starting to play the same games. This movie peeks behind the curtain and shows how the magic trick was done to decimate so many financially.
This is entertainment of the highest order–– intriguing, entertaining, provocative and compelling, with great performances by Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt and many more.
This may be the best film of the year, and certainly it’s the most important. See it and weep.
8 responses to “Laugh Until You Cry”
Saw it last night and fell asleep. Although I’m not an economist, I don’t need the problem or terminology explained to me six different ways throughout the whole film.
Valid point, but the explanations didn’t bug me. They were used to illuminate the fact that the whole thing was always explained as incredibly complex, but actually wasn’t.
They were bogus from the get go.
I love the first description, “Explained by a supermodel in a bubble bath”. How hard could it be?
Or Anthony Bourdain, not particularly renown for his intellect:)
This movie unexpectedly stunned me. Like Matt Tiabbi’s GRIFTOPIA it tells a tragic tale with humor. See it twice – once for the craft of story telling and then to remind /teach yourself why true “free’ markets are where consumer citizens are crushed.
Great call Patrick.
Thanks, Kirk. I do want to see it again, to make sure I get it all.
A great film and unfortunately so true. You can blame the the current adminstration (Eric Holder, in particular) for not prosecuting a single one of those criminals.
In the Savings and Loan scandal of the late 80s early 90s many of the banksters committing fraud were prosecuted. The savings and loan debacle was one-seventieth the size of the current crisis, both in terms of losses and the amount of fraud.
In that crisis, the savings and loan regulators made over 30,000 criminal referrals, and this produced over 1,000 felony convictions in cases designated as “major” by the Department of Justice. The FBI and the Justice Department created a list of the top 100 — the 100 worst fraud schemes. They involved roughly 300 savings and loans and 600 individuals, and virtually all of those people were prosecuted. They had a 90 percent conviction rate, which is the greatest success against elite white-collar crime (in terms of prosecution) in history.
Today, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay a $5.1 billion fine for its roles in peddling their mortgage backed securities to pension funds,etc. knowing full well it was crap. Heaven forbid anyone go to jail for it though.
Fabulous info. Let’s get smart. Fuck these assholes!
Amen. Thanks Mr. Lud and David for the commentary.