Year: 2016
Director: Adam McKay
Declaration of interest straight up. I work in the financial markets in the education area these days, so I know a lot about what happened during the global financial crisis, the shenanigans that went on and I know the jargon. So I am coming from a different angle to someone either wanting to have a stimulating night at the movies or learn about what caused the GFC.
The Big short is a reference to shorting the market. which means you sell something you don’t own and hope to buy it back at a lower price before you have to settle.So you sell higher than you buy which is the reverse of buying something then hopefully selling it when it goes up. At the time the markets were in a major bull run ( rising market) so people taking a negative view was very much going against the tide.
The movie focusses on a few characters that latch onto the realisation that the mortgage market in america is extremely vulnerable due to por lending practises and the financial markets are ,in turn extremely vulnerable because of the many financial instruments created based on these underlying mortgages. Securitised debt obligations, collateralised debt obligations. for most people their eyes will glaze over about now which is why they director uses funky techniques like having characters talk straight to camera or have cut aways to a professor, or a model in a bath to explain some concepts, as well as the characters themselves explaining the instruments to themselves. So it a pretty didactic movie.
There is the troubled markets man, Mark Baum he loves his job but hates the moral bankruptcy of the system. Brad Pitt plays a low key role as a disaffected trader who helps some young blokes take short positions and Christian Bale is pretty good as a New York trader who has twigged to the real estate bubble.
The movie is really like a Mike Moore quasi doco than a drama though there is enough drama to keep people entertained. From my perspective I did like how they explained some financial concepts such as synthetics.
The conundrum is that if , like me, you know what happened and why then this movie aint gonna teach you much and if you don’t know much about the markets you probably wont be that interested.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
Financial markets, policy issues
Really enjoyed it even if only to remind me that despite all the lying and cheating and plain greed only one (yes one) banker went to jail. And, of course, there are signs it’s all going to happen again.
Yes I did like the pretend conclusion followed by ….as if.
Massive deregulation by the Republicans is at the root of it and greed of course.
Saw it yesterday and very entertained – if that’s appropriate for such a meltdown. As someone who remembers the bubbles of the late 80’s and interest rates up to 14/15% in the 90s it would be nice if it could all be attributed to Republicans.
Well clearly not all – but they certainly loosened the restrictions on lending.
Clinton put pressure on lenders also.
I read the book – it was overlong and somewhat of a drag. His much earlier book, ‘Liars Poker’ was excellent.
I see it’s just won some award that has successfully predicted the Oscar Winner for the last eight years. It’s not that good, is it?
no – I really didn’t think any of the acting was that good. Serviceable but certainly not award material .
and yes Liars Poker was more fun to read.
I really enjoyed it, and read the book too. Whilst I agree with your definition of shorting on stocks, wasn’t this about credit default swaps, i.e. betting on loan defaults when the interest rates went up after the fixed period? I bow to your greater knowledge though!