2015 unleashed a smorgasbord of movies that were all very, if I had to latch one word to the collection, unique. From the survival epic "The Revenent" that pushed the physical endurance of its cast and crew, to what proved itself to be Pixar's most critically acclaimed film in quite some time, "Inside out." We saw the most masterful installment of the road race saga Mad Max in "Fury Road" and we saw Matt Damon survive Mars in "The Martian." We even got to see a new "Star Wars" movie! Albeit, whereas all these individual films dared us to dream up new worlds, one in particular asked us to look deeper into a harsh reality of the real one.
This movie is called "The Big Short", and it is the most important movie of last year (possibly even the last decade).
It stars -- and I use this next term heavily -- the A-list cast of Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling.
It is also currently on Netflix.
The film chronicles the erratic Wall Street guru Michael Burry (Bale) as he notices the massive number of subprime mortgage loans that are at risk of defaulting. He uses more than 1 billion dollars of his investor's money to invest against the housing market. This attracts the attention of banker Jared Vennett (Gosling), hedge-fund specialist Mark Baum (Carell) and other opportunists including Pitt. Together, these men take advantage of the economic recession America faced at the end of the decade.
So yeah! How invigorating does a movie about the financial collapse of the housing market in '07 sound?
Yes, I know, not too enticing, and even a bit complicated too. Don't worry, the film does an excellent job breaking down the more complicated musings by using Ryan Gosling (who came out of acting hiatus for this) in his fourth wall breaking character, and some cameos from Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez. The camera work is docu-style, much like that of "The Office" and it helps to reinforce the reality of the situation.
This film, based off the book of the same name by Michael Lewis, approaches the overly complicated material by expressing it in layman's terms. The movie ingeniously shows the financial corruption of America's banking system, and the egregious amount of greed needed to ruin the lives of the masses for personal gain. I firmly believe "The Big Short" should have won Best Picture at The Oscars last year, but more importantly, I believe what the film exposed is what our education system should be teaching us about.
Most impressively "The Big Short" was directed by Adam McKay, whose previous directing credits are attached to "Anchorman" and "Anchorman 2: The Legend of Ron Burgundy". But I suppose it would take a man who knows how to direct humor to direct a film about the laughing stock that is the current state of this country's financial system.
McKay does a spellbinding job with stellar performances out of everyone on screen. As our four heroes learn more about the corruption Wall Street, we too are engaged by the impending doom. "The Big Short" truly is an astounding movie. Despite complicated subject matter it delivers a true story of utmost importance to its audience. I cannot recommend this movie to you enough. So go check it out. Go! It's on Netflix!
