The Big Short

"Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come."

- Haruki Murakami

There is nothing on Adam McKay's directorial resume to show that he would know how to handle a tricky, confoundingly complex and important film like "The Big Short." He has previously helmed "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues," "The Other Guys," "Step Brothers," "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" -- all acquired taste comedies. And that's being generous.

So it's pretty miraculous that McKay has crafted one of 2015's best films, masterfully managing a most extraordinary cast (along with "Spotlight," the best ensemble work of the year) and co-adapting Michael Lewis's seminal book, "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine," along with Charles Randolph, in a clever and engrossing manner where most viewers won't feel like complete imbeciles.

Sure, McKay can be accused of putting forth a polemic, but to argue that he doesn't show the other side is akin to arguing that the Vatican's response to their complicity in the molestation of hundreds of thousands of children should matter. It doesn't. The church is guilty. Ditto the Wall Street titans who felt they had the right to rewrite the rules for themselves and destroy lives in the process.

If this lunatic tale weren't based on factual events, no one would ever believe it. And the craziest of all the crazy is that the bailout has not just allowed so many criminals to get away with it, they are thriving -- and they're doing it all over again. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I don't know about you, but trying to wrap my mind around most Wall Street and banking gobbledyspeak is a study in futility. And when you add trying to figure out the mortgage racket (and a racket it is), you may as well put trigonometry in front of me.

While I didn't walk away from "The Big Short" feeling I was some expert at synthetic CDOs (collateralized debt obligation), tranches, housing bonds or subprime mortgages, I did realize that the mortgage within a mortgage within a mortgage was a way for the brokers to deliberately confuse everyone, make promises they couldn't possibly keep (usually to families who didn't have the wherewithal to ever be able to pay back a mortgage) and become gazillionaires in the process... oh, and by the way, crashing the entire economy while they were at it.

One of the many brilliant things the film does is find strange and wonderful new ways to try and explain certain financial terms (CDOs: "dogshit wrapped in catshit"), like having Margot Robbie appear in a bubble bath to explain mortages.

"The Big Short" tells the story of a few individuals who figured out things were going to go very badly, and, for the most part, decided how they were going to profit from the impending financial apocalypse.

First to smell the calamity that was coming: Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale), a socially awkward former neurologist, now money manager, with a glass eye. ("I've always been more comfortable alone," he admits.)

Burry decides to study thousands of individual mortgages (something no one ever does) and discovers that "the housing market is a time bomb." He invents a "credit default swap" that essentially will "short" the booming market by investing his client's monies -- basically betting against the U.S. economy's success.

Egotistical d-bag banker Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) accidentally gets wind of what Burry is doing and enlists grousy, uber-d-bag, hedge fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team to invest millions in these credit default swaps.

Mark, who enters and exits rooms the way the Wicked Witch of the West comes and goes in "The Wizard of Oz," is initially skeptical. But after doing some homework, he is gobsmacked to realize the economy is actually on the verge of collapse.

Two twenty-something dingleberries also stumble onto what is happening: Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) and Charlie Geller (John Magaro). Mentored by former banker, now environmentalist guru Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt), they set out to do their own damage. At one point during their "investigations," Shipley blurts out, "I feel like Robert Redford" (an allusion to "All the President's Men").

Wall Street's "unprecedented criminality" is soon exposed, and the banks begin to tumble, but is the "atomic bomb of fraud and stupidity" punished? Of course... NOT. In point of fact, only one man was ever even prosecuted.

"The Big Short" initially looks like a "Wolf of Wall Street" wannabe, but McKay finds his own wacky, surreal structure that is is perfectly in line with the insanity of the deception perpetrated on the American people. And he was keen in casting actors who dive right in and in HBO-"Veep"-style play the shit out of their characters.

Like his Oscar-winning turn in "The Fighter," this is another wholly immersive Bale performance, and he astounds. Justice would mean another Oscar nomination.

Carell is an actor I have never appreciated in anything. Ever. Seriously. Ever. Yes, even "The 40-Year-Old Virgin.' Did not like him in "Foxcatcher." Well, he's just terrific here, playing a supreme asshole. Who knew? Now I'm not ready to revisit any of his past work, but I can give him props for killing it!

The spot-on work continues from Gosling to Pitt to Wittrock to Magaro to Hamish Linklater to Tracy Letts to Adepero Oduye to Rafe Spall to a hilariously dim Melissa Leo to an always-potent Marisa Tomei. I have to single out Jeremy Strong from among this stellar group as someone who was exceptionally amazing.

"The Big Short" is a sharp, entertaining and relevant movie that, in its chilling final bit of information, reveals just how little we've learned from the sins of the (recent) past.

Randomly (or not), it had me wondering if the U.S. government is more afraid of Wall Street or the NRA? And what needs to happen for people to wake up and demand accountability from both?