The Big Short

Für meinen Geschmack zu viele Hypotheken und Banken. Dem Film fehlt die Verspieltheit und Leichtigkeit von The Wolf of Wall Street, der unterhaltsam wäre, auch wenn man ihn auf Chinesisch sehen würde. Bei den Text-Informationen ohne Fotos von Figuren beim Nachspann wusste ich den Namen nach nicht, um wen es sich handelt. Die Schauspieler*innen sind aber super, am meisten hat mich Carell überrascht, der auf dem Weg von leichten Komödien zu Charakterrollen ist. (07.01.2016)

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)

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)

This is a very difficult movie to watch and I believe that I’ll watch it again soon. It’s got a lot of information about finances that I kept getting lost in. And it didn’t even help that there was an insertion here and there that explained some of the terms very nicely. For example, Margot Robbie in a bathtub made for a very pleasant insertion. But the 130 minutes still flew in a blink of an eye and I really liked that about the movie. It told a really difficult topic in a very interesting way. The director Adam McKay went wild with this one. And we can also thank the actors like Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale or Steve Carell, who have taken the story to new heights. And when it comes to Steve Carell, I must admit that the longer I’ve known him, the better roles he keeps getting. The Big Short was a big surprise. It presented the big mess-up that the entire America has been though in a really original way; although, it was a big mess-up for most ordinary people and then just a slight mishap for the selected few who think they rule the entire world. And often, they don’t just think so, unfortunately. As far as the global capitalism goes, this is an eye-opening movie. But just for a little while. Thinking about this for any longer could cause infinite depressions. (23.02.2016)

Kann denn eine zweistündige Lektion in Wirtschaftswissenschaften aus den Vorkrisezeiten sein, in der CDOs stets geshortet werden und ums Verrecken geswappt wird, denn überhaupt dynamisch, emotional oder unterhaltsam sein? Dies ist eine sehr hohe und unsichere Wette, jedoch überraschenderweise heißt es da ja - großartige Schnittarbeit, musikalische Dramaturgie, (detaillierte) Regiearbeit mit den Schauspielern und selbstbverständlich dem Glasauge von Christian Bale... Eine monetärer Knaller des Jahresanfangs, schreiben Sie Ihre Hypothek auf Ihren Hund um, kaufen Sie Samen ein, investieren Sie in Wasser und hören Sie METALLICA. Und regelmäßige Verdauungstraktspülungen absolvieren. Nichts endet, denn es geht weiter ... (04.01.2016)

A Little bit like Margin Call, a little bit like The Wolf of Wall Street, a little bit like John Oliver... Pell-mell, which holds together despite all assumptions and the creators do not play it safe. On the contrary, McKay has a nicely subversive and viewer-friendly approach to a topic that is difficult to grasp. His approach is perhaps too inconsistent (but thanks to this, it is exceptionally dynamic) and where "each of the great cast" steals a show for some time, but as a result, he managed to make a film that sheds light on the financial crisis in such a way that it works both dramatically and comedically (in the best moments even within the same scene) and, in addition, it was understandable even to those who have no idea what financial market is about. (16.01.2016)

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)

Immediately after watching the movie - albeit reluctantly and with considerable hesitation - I awarded the film a dirty four stars because there is never enough criticism of greed and spinelessness. However, I am writing this comment sometime later, when the shortcomings of the script have fully revealed themselves. While it does analyze the causes of the economic crisis of the memorable year 2008, it does so in a somewhat cumbersome and less understandable way for the average viewer. The Big Short does not work as a captivating story with charismatic characters, such as in The Wolf of Wall Street, nor is it an intimate drama that exposes human characters to the core in a borderline situation, as was the case in Margin Call. In the realm of movies depicting the nefarious activities of financial institutions and discussing the crisis of trust in modern Western society, this film simply does not belong to the top tier. Overall impression: 60%. (03.10.2022)

Bombastic! An atomic bomb. The horror of a mortgage in its most nightmarish form. And again emerges my favorite topic, dumb and irresponsible people. I don’t want to pretend that I understood everything, no way. And Margot Robbie in the bath was more distracting than helpful in explaining, but I have a feeling that fundamentally it isn’t so complicated after all. Good old untruths and lies. In terms of acting, The Big Short is wholesome, from Bale thru Pitt. Everyone wrings out the maximum from their role, Steve Carell dominates again (where was he all those years when dramas were knocking on the door?), he rediscovered himself in this movie. Adam McKay was a surprise. The end of the American dream presented with humor and tension. You have to see it more than once. (08.02.2016)

Inspiration from The Wolf of Wall Street (lead actors, dynamics), well chosen protagonists and Steve Carell playing me. A heartwarming film for people in the business, and recipients who don't understand it will bemoan how little story there is and how it's too much about numbers and mortgages. (24.01.2016)

All credit to Adam McKay, his imaginative and witty direction, unafraid to rely on humour, to let the protagonists speak to the camera and to have famous celebrities explain the meaning of certain financial concepts completely out of the context of the plot, is what makes The Big Short a must-see. And perhaps also because of the actors, who give it their all, even though only two (Carell and Bale) have the space to match their deliciously scatterbrained creations. But I search in vain for a reason to watch a film that, despite the deluge of dialogue and conspiracies, doesn't tell the average mortal anything more than that they don’t know shit about the subject and wouldn’t want to change that. I tried to keep up with the nonsensical deadlines and bureaucratic loopholes, but after an hour I stopped enjoying the effort, and after two hours I was so saturated that I really didn't care how it all turned out. That said, hats off for the direction, even master Eisenstein would have bowed in appreciation before a similarly dynamic yet clear montage, although he would undoubtedly be as blown away by the content as I am... 70% (27.01.2016)

A dark spiral into the apocalypse, where we perpetually chortle at the waterfalls of absurdity, even though we know it all probably played out this way down to the last word, and we'll live our entire lives in its aftermath. It's like the Russians watching The Death of Stalin in 1956. But the gradual unraveling of this capital screw-up is somehow cynically, nihilistically fulfilling in The Big Short's portrayal, which seems to say that, like the filmmakers, we don't expect much from civilization anymore. The tragedy of the main characters, who have made a fortune betting against the system and who can only subsequently spend it in a world they have stopped trusting, is telling enough. (30.08.2021)

For a film that I largely didn't understand, I was remarkably intrigued. The insane amount of stock market terms made me feel like I used to feel in a physics class back in my schooldays. Fortunately, the filmmakers realized that there would probably be more financial illiterates like me and included a number of witty explanations. I have to give credit to the excellent Christian Bale and all that great music he played, and especially to Steve Carell, whom I have long suspected of being a great actor without an opportunity to prove it. Well, he did so in this film. I normally wouldn’t be interested in this subject, but the filmmakers presented it in such a way that I couldn't tear myself away from the film until the closing credits. (21.06.2016)

"The Bet on Uncertainty" has an interesting form, you have to give it that. Actually, not just the form, it's a great film. But compared to "Spotlight," which I found somewhat similar in terms of investigative focus, even though each film is different, "Spotlight" seemed more hard-hitting to me. Perhaps because there's not as much emphasis on the actors, but on the subject matter. In this case too, the subject matter is strong and you realize how foolish people can be and what swine they can be. This is a proper downer about how everything collapses, we watch it and then let it collapse again. (08.02.2016)

Die Finanzkrise. Schnee von gestern, unpopulärer, entweder seiner Konsequenzen, oder auch deswegen, dass ihn bis heute niemand erklären kann. Für Adam McKay jedoch gar kein Problem. Die globale Wirtschaftskrise von 2008 bringt er uns nicht nur in einer verständlichen, sondern auch in einer lustigen Version, bei der man kein Wirtschaftsgenie sein muss, um zu verstehen, wann was wie schief gelaufen ist. Begleitet vom ständig mies gelaunten Carell und ein paar weiteren Auserwählten, welche das Geschehen aus anderen Blickwinkeln betrachten. Deshalb bleibt die Handlung nicht auf der Stelle, sondern wird zunehmend interessanter, mehr unterschiedliche Charaktere zu sehen, wie sie mit der Situation umgehen. Natürlich bleibt die Handlungslinie dabei bestehen. Zum tieferen Verständnis ist das Werk eine schwere Kost, und um alles zu verstehen, muss man es mehrmals anschauen. Einfacher konnte es aber nicht dargestellt werden. Zumindest ein attraktiveres Konzept als hier, wo Margot Robbie einem in der Badewanne versucht das Hypothekensystem zu erklären, wird es wohl kein zweites Mal geben. (14.07.2016)

Exactly my kind of movie with excellent acting (Carell is superb in it), but something is missing. Although I know a thing or two about economics, I was a bit lost at the beginning (like many others, I guess), but the explanation from Margot or later from Selena was perfect. Even during other moments which I found confusing, the writers did their best to help me out. However, they might have been too ambitious. The movie pushes too hard, as evidenced by the fact that even after two hours, I did not remember the names of the vast majority of characters. Next time I want to get an idea of just how arrogant and brazen the Wall Street bankers are, I'll rather watch Inside Job, a brilliant Oscar-winning documentary. (03.02.2016)