The Big Short
2015
Directed by Adam McKay
Netflix says… Before the housing and credit bubble of 2007 triggers an international economic meltdown, a handful of financial outsiders sees the crash coming and bets against the big banks in a daring play that could reap them huge profits.
- So… I like this movie…
- But I’m not too sure how it wound up in my personal Top 100.
- It may have been one of those instances where I saw it, was really impressed afterward, then jumped onto Flickchart and immediately ranked it higher than I really intended.
- Here’s the thing… I’m watching it again and I’m remembering that there’s a lot of language in the dialogue that I just don’t understand.
- And that’s because I’m just not a finance guy.
- Yeah, I worked for a bank for a few years, but I was a nobody at that bank. I was a peon.
- I never could have risen above the level of teller because, while I’m good at the math, I’ve never been good with markets and bonds and mortgages.
- But here’s what I do like about this movie…
- The dialogue, while confusing at times, is snappy. It’s clever.
- And when things get too confusing or technical, they bring in the likes of Margot Robbie and Anthony Bourdain to explain in layman’s terms.
- That is brilliant.
- It’s incredibly entertaining to watch these bankers acting so incredibly arrogant before the housing market crashes.
- They believe that they’re on top of the world and nothing could possibly bring them down.
- And then it all collapsed.
- This was real life, people.
- It really happened.
- A few people saw it coming and they made a crap-ton of money based on the banks’ stupidity and arrogance.
- This affected people across the U.S. Maybe even the world.
- Because all of these economic structures are so interwoven and connected.
- Did it affect you?
- I was working for a bank when all of this went down. I watched it happen from the inside.
- Granted, I was the lowest man on the totem pole, but I was there.
- I didn’t have a mortgage. I didn’t have any kind of investment in any of this.
- I lost nothing. I gained nothing. Life, for me, just continued.
- But to see how people were able to take advantage of all that was going on through the course of this movie is kind of mind blowing.
- The question I have at the end of it all is… Did we learn anything from the collapse of the housing market?
- My next question… What’s next on the bubble? What’s gonna go under in the future? Student loans? Healthcare? Facebook?
- If nothing else, this simply highlights the rampant corruption that exists among big banks, businesses, and government.
Come back next week for something a little less realistic… The Avengers.
One of the cleverest movies I have ever seen. It went out of its way to teach us. By the time it ended we had a full understanding what went down and how it happened.
Did we learn anything? No. In some ways our country is played like a game. This particular game made some people rich and that’s why it will happen again.
I was looking forward to this review. Happy to see you liked it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: My Top 100 Movies | The Confusing Middle