Using an A-list cast and a grab-bag of creative strategies, director Adam McKay - a frequent collaborator with Will Ferrell on projects like "Anchorman," "Talledega Nights" and the Funny or Die website - shows how tricky labels like collaterized debt obligations were meant to distract and confuse regular people from what was happening with the huge mortgage bubble.Īnd McKay doesn't flinch from spelling out how a handful of people - including Gosling's character - got rich from the wheeling and dealing while the rest of us lost jobs, houses or substantial chunks of hard-earned nest eggs.
“The Big Short" is one of the most subversive movies of 2015 - and also one of the best. “This was a test that I crammed for, then I forgot everything when I walked out,” he says of learning the meaning behind the rapid-fire acronym patter of his ambitious corporate banker, who spends one scene explaining the precarious mortgage bundling process and ratings system using a Jenga game.
The questions are too esoteric for almost every person, including the 35-year-old actor who's in “The Big Short,” the funny, furiously angry new movie about the subprime mortgage crisis and financial meltdown of 2008. “And what’s in it? What’s a credit default swap?” Ryan Gosling is on the phone and, just for fun, he’s giving an Economic Schemes 101 quiz.