The Big Short

Can a two-hour lesson in pre-crisis economics, where CDOs are constantly shortened and there is swapping, be dynamic, emotional and fun? A very big bet on uncertainty, but surprisingly yes - a great masterclass of editing, music dramaturgy, (detailed) directing of actors and, of course, the glass eye of Christian Bale... Monetary shots right from the start of the year, write the mortgage in the name of your pooch, buy seeds, invest in water and listen to METALLICA. And have your colon rinsed out regularly. Nothing ends, moving on... (04/01/2016)

If you have a problem even doing a regular tax return, you're going to get lost in the terminology, and that’s even if Margot Robbie fully gets out of the bathtub. On the other hand, I consider the actors being led with such precision and then having a hundred-and-thirty-minute conversation edited into such a dynamic whole (which is not boring, even if you don't really understand it in the finale) a unique demonstration of directorial skills. This is a decent improvement from the director of shallow comedies. (16/01/2016)

A screenwriting masterclass. A fantastic slap in the face of the greedy capitalist system of hard-core, savage financial jungle led by scummy Gordon Geckos, an economy without regulation and feedback controls. No other film in the last 10 years has shown better how the invisible hand of the market is ripping our asses off, that a few individuals can profit handsomely from your misery thanks to the greedy policies of the banks, that we are somehow to blame for everything, thanks to our indifference, and that everything will be borne financially by the common folk of the middle and lower classes. And as the closing credits show, history unfortunately repeats itself and will continue to repeat itself as long as man lives. (27/04/2016)

The makers of The Big Short were fortunately conscious of how indigestible a film overloaded with names, numbers, abbreviations and the uncovering of complicated relationships between the individual components of the investment market would be. Therefore, they conceived the film as a two-hour shouting match between a few eccentrics, speaking in advanced economic gibberish instead of human language. Without resigning itself to fidelity to the facts, The Big Short attempts to tell the story as graphically as possible and with the detached humour found in The Wolf of Wall Street. However, McKay is no Scorsese, especially in terms of storytelling abilities. Our guide on the path to economic disaster is Jared Vennett, who occasionally turns directly to the camera or stops the flow of the narrative to gleefully shed light on the tricks that the big fish on Wall Street use. But his own tricks quickly become predictable. The breaking of the fourth wall by the plain-spoken narrator is mainly a means of distraction, not – as in Wolf – an essential part of a well-thought-out narrative strategy. Similarly, the film randomly intersperses the exaggerated comedy with moments of existential crisis for the increasingly helpless Baum (the scenes with his wife are among the most unnecessary of the whole film, which is rather regrettable, given the casting of Marisa Tomei). Also distracting is the hyperkinetic editing and shaky camerawork by Barry Ackroyd, who shoots the sharp exchanges of opinion in the enclosed offices as frantic (Greengrass-esque) action. From start to finish, he zooms, refocuses and pans with admirable energy, resulting in the blending of scenes that are crucial for the narrative with others in which nothing essential happens. Neither the pacing nor the urgency with which the film speaks to us is developed. The film is monotonous, lacks suspense and surprises, and is rather more reminiscent of a PowerPoint presentation than a drama that is funny in places, but you have to force yourself to pay attention to it for the whole two hours. It helps a lot that some of Hollywood’s most charismatic actors vie for our attention; they are excellent especially in the brazenly farcical moments. The partially improvised scenes involving them shouting each other down are among the highlights of the film. Due to the shallowness of their characters, however, they have nothing on which to base their performances during the more serious moments. The same can be said of The Big Short as a whole. As merely a cynical comedy ridiculing people who make million-dollar transactions with no more thought than evacuating their bowels, it is highly entertaining. As a warning against the inherent rottenness of capitalism, it falls flat. 70% (28/02/2016)

Drowned in their own ambitions. The creators want so much to be the authors of a gripping wake-up call that they are almost unwatchable at their core. All the economic ranting lacks the bigger dramatic arc that propelled, for example, The Wolf of Wall Street, which the screenwriters obviously adore (evidenced not least by the ubiquitous and overly aggressive satire). Some personal stories make brief appearances here too, but due to the dilution of attention among the dozens involved, they vanish into oblivion. I understand that if you're going to discuss economics and mortgages for over two hours in a hundred and one different ways, we will have to immerse ourselves in professional terminology, but we still didn't really need that many. The constant dissection of more and more future financial catastrophes is downright tiring in the final act, it doesn't move the plot forward and merely redirects it into a screenwriter's twist it has already taken several times before. It's been a while since I was last this bothered over actors (in this case, the chameleonic Christian Bale and explosive Steve Carell) performing at full steam without managing to interest me in the consequences of their characters' actions. (06/01/2016)