It’s also interesting how the movie seems to switch genres halfway through, first we get black comedy ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ vibes then it’s a righteous unveiling of the real corrupt underworld of Wall Street. It takes the first hour and a half for it to get interesting, the first half being just how many big sentences full of industry jargon can we get in before someone switches off. Long story short, because this is a long movie the American economy collapsed, 5 trillion dollars was lost, eight million people lost their jobs, six million lost their homes, Jared Vennett made $47 million in commissions, Mark Baum’s team made $1 billion and Michael Burry made $100 million for himself and $700 million for his investors.Īdam McKay’s depiction of Micheal Lewis’s book ‘The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine’ is a grower not a shower.

He then confronts hedge-fund specialist Mark Baum, played by Steve Carell, with Burry’s idea to short the housing market. The rumour of a housing collapse is therefore music to his ears. Vennett is the most stereotypical cliché version of a banker trying to make as much money as possible without a care as to how he does it. Soon others catch wind of what Burry is up to, including Jared Vennett, a banker played by Ryan Gosling (who also narrates the movie). Burry then invests over $1billion of his investors’ money in credit default swaps, the whole time being ridiculed and disparaged for his ludicrous investments. Michael Burry, an unusual and unkempt introvert played by Christian Bale, first notices several subprime home loans that are basically complete shit and are in danger of defaulting and inevitably collapsing the US housing market. The Big Short follows the events of the 2008 financial crisis, but from the angle of Wall Street that made an absolute killing. Starring Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt and Christian Bale, steel yourself for a host of industry jargon and a movie undecided as to whether it's on a moral crusade or a quest for giggles.

Michael Lewis' brilliant book is converted into an unlikely mainstream hit from the director behind Anchorman and Step Brothers.

The big short characters