I want to know if anyone got shaky at any point of the development or if McKay's screenplay (written with Charles Randolph) was surefire hot property from the get go. Because I've got to say, slapping McKay onto this material was an absolute fucking masterstroke. I've enjoyed his work for a long time but The Big Short reveals a depth of self knowledge that borders on visionary.
It is as if McKay sat down with 'The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine', Lewis' investigation of the United States' housing market collapse that precipitated the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, got angry, thought about how even the Damonsplaining Oscar winning documentary The Inside Job, didn't do justice to his fury, and say down to employ every weapon in his considerable comedic arsenal to hammer the message home: THESE STUPID CUNTS FUCKED OVER THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY WERE STUPID AND GREEDY AND THEY GOT AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE THEY ARE RICH AND WHITE AND HAVE PENISES.
Thankfully, with Lewis in his corner he gets that message across with an astuteness that surpasses such juvenile ALLCAPS fuming. The Big Short comes at the housing market collapse from the angle of a group of money managers and hedge fund operators who saw through the trading of subprime mortgages and junk stocks and ponied up capital to bet against the market. They gambled big at a table run by a house deluded enough to take wads of cash against what they believed were impossible odds.
McKay's brilliance is the manner in which he coats the GFC pill (one nobody is interested in swallowing) in Zeitgeisty sugar. His stars, though dowdily coiffed, pack punch and a bring direct connection with the audience - especially direct in the case of Gosling's Deutsche Bank trader Jared Vennett, who regularly busts through the fourth wall to point out the dramatised explanation's most pertinent points. He's assisted with other stars, playing themselves straight to camera, to talk through the more laboursome details, CDO's, CDS's and the like. And surrounding this, to keep the pace up, McKay and his editor Hank Corwin jam the film with rapid fire channel surfing picking up (with a very wry humour) on this generations penchant for cat video shaped mental chewing gum. The end result is a frenetic infomercial-beast that mainlines detailed information to the synapses via the funny bone.
The Big Short's cynicism in using all these tools is matched by its mercenary subject matter. Strip back the GFC explanation here and what's left is a tale of greed, stupidity and misplaced trust uncovered by a group of greedy, slightly less stupid men who themselves were profiting from their actions. McKay and Randolph's screenplay doesn't shy away from this fact. With the exception of Carrell's socially conscious (and therefore conflicted) Mark Baum and Pitt's paranoia-soaked Ben Rickert, the players here are barely one step removed from their crisis-prone counterparts. These aren't anti-heroes working the system, they are just villains who have their shit together better. Their actions are only dressed as heroism within the frame of high return profits - the self same capitalist mindset that brought this whole shitstorm down on the world in the first instance. The Big Short understands this irony, and McKay and Randolph have Rickert hammer it home with a single gut punching line. Amongst all the furious fun, Pitt confirms his ability to slay with little more than a cameo.
I was gobsmacked leaving the cinema. Gobsmacked and angry. From Anchorman to this? Now, I love Anchorman (and Step Brothers) but I've always put that success down to McKay's ensembles and a fair amount of ad-libbing. This is next level stuff and it impresses from start to finish, not just in its communicative power but in its ability to shear straight through the white noise that has hampered the message getting through in the past. That's the gobsmacked part. The anger was completely down to the film's persuasive success. I hope it catches. My teeth are firmly gritted that The Big Short, its comedy, its publicity, its awards buzz, its bankable cast and its kiss-my-arse swagger, can revive the public outcry on this farce before they pull another swift one on us.
Cunts.
★★★★☆
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