THE BIG SHORT
Rs. 599
Cast: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, Hamish Linklater
Directed By: Adam McKay
Adapting Michael Lewis’s book of the same name, comedy director Adam McKay tells the story of the downfall of the housing market in America in the mid 2000s. He not only takes the story from the beginning of it all, but also focuses on the few fund managers who saw it all coming. In between shots, he also pauses the action to explain with voiceover and images as to how the whole crooked system operated. The film that won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2016, explores the subject matter with tact and humor to bring out the main objective in a compelling way. We have hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale), who through an inner instinct discovers that the housing market is unstable in America. Burry placed bets against the housing market by creating a credit default swap market with numerous banks worth millions of dollars, so that he could profit from the bad housing market situation when it arises. We also have Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), a Wall Street trader, who learns about the bets being placed by Burry and decides to start to put his own bets and stakes in the market. His team becomes involved with Mark Baum (Steve Carell), another hedge fund manager and his team
Two other young business entrepreneurs Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) also find out about the bets being placed against the housing market and decide to join in as well. They seek help from their retired banker friend Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) on the investments.
While the small group profit big time, the rest of America end in utter disarray losing their homes and jobs. When reality struck, only few profited while the economy took a nosedive that America had never seen before. The main villains of this story – they're the big banks, be it Lehman Brothers, J.P. Morgan and a few others. If finance is your subject, you would love this movie.
— Verus Ferreira