Nepali Times

It takes a while to adjust one’s brain to the incessant information lobbed at you from the moment The Big Short opens – some may even give up. Such is the density of the material that needs to be processed to understand how a series of increasingly risky, highly leveraged bets against an established, guaranteed set of home loans that were considered, wrongly, by the U.S. banking system to be a sound investment resulted in the collapse of the financial market in 2008.

Of course, the technicalities of how the market came crashing down is much more complicated. The Big Short (adapted from a book by the same name) ambitiously tries and succeeds in analysing and explaining the underlying mischief and willful blindness on the part of the Wall Street banking fat cats who ignored the perpetuation of unsound practices that were bound to fail.

Unfortunately, eight years later we have moved on, the United States economy has recovered, and sleazy bondsmen such as Jared Vennett (played extremely effectively by an unattractively coiffed Ryan Gosling) are at it again – prompting the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

If you think this review has become more of a rant against Wall Street than an analysis of the film, that is testament to a movie that cleverly explains the entrenched rot in an established financial system so effectively that you almost end up liking the clever but morally nebulous guys who made money by betting against a deeply corrupt system.

With some solid writing, hilarious celebrity cameos (Margot Robbie, Selena Gomez, Anthony Bourdain all put in an appearance) to explain the hard, technical bits, and a very strong ensemble cast, The Big Short is a blow by blow account of all the players who saw the crash coming, placed their bets, cashed in, with some of them trying their hardest to warn of the dangers they were exploiting.

For a mainstream film with actors like Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell as Wall Street hedge fund manager Mark Baum, a rare man with a conscience, in major roles, the film’s budget at $28 million is surprisingly low, making this Oscar nominated film an interesting, surprisingly political venture.

Unfortunately, despite the success of The Big Short not much has really changed, making the film ring a bit hollow despite its intentions to expose all the wrongdoings that led to such a devastating event. In the end the film only proves that our most base instincts will out, money is always respected over honesty, and decisions made on a small island in the U.S. can result in tidal waves all over the world.

Trailer