Well, Adam McKay has found a story he has been wanting to tell for some time.
A film about a group of men that noticed long before anyone else, that the world's housing market was going to collapse does sound like the type of film McKay can make into one of the most entertaining films of this current decade.
From the very beginning, you can tell that you are about to delve into a world full of complicated jargon. But luckily, McKay and his team manage to simplify in a way that is cleverly comical, and yet still makes us having to really concentrate on what is going on.
Whilst it is making me laugh fairly regularly and making learn about this type of business, I could not seem to warm to it enough to place this among the best films of the year. Was it too complicated to understand, did it insult my lack of intelligence on this particular subject, was it pretentious? Let's see.
I did like the style it was going for. Breaking the fourth wall and explaining the crises in layman's terms had a Wolf Of Wall Street feel to it, which excited me. It was the perfect way of simplifying the jargon with that amount of clever comedic elements to make it accessible to the masses.
But despite all that, I still felt incredibly dumb afterwards and confused on how to react to the decisions our characters were making, especially in the second half.
Also, I think the main problem for me not liking it as much the awards voters is the tone. It felt like it was trying to be every type of genre possible. One minute, they're trying to make you laugh, then cry and feel sympathetic the next. But whilst trying to make sense of how the crises happened, I felt unsure how to react. It was frustrating me.
But thankfully, there is a lot to like. The writing is the films strongest part. To make something so complex into highly entertaining and mainstream approved deserves admiration. The comedy is great and has that McKay feel to it in every gag.
The performances were pretty good overall. Christian Bale may not have given us one of his best. But you know his acting is high-quality and you should always be grateful for it. Steve Carell was the best of the lot. He played a prick, but a prick that is honest and we can root for. Carell is a regular with McKay and fit into his tone so easily.
Ryan Gosling was very entertaining and definitely branched another part of his acting arsenal. He gives us a lot of laughs and was a wonderful helping hand in explaining to us what all this jargon means. As for Brad Pitt, it is nothing much. His name might be on the poster, but the character he plays is not actually one that steals the show.
Despite the problems I had with it, the presentation of this astonishing story made me really care about something that I have no interest in. It definitely made me want to find out more about this particular story and the crisis itself.
But the execution of it felt frustrating to me, the pacing felt inconsistent and the editing felt really odd. The writing thankfully kept me engaged and got me to appreciate it enough to recommend this. It sort of reminded me of Moneyball, which is the funny as these two films have the same author of their respective novels.
Confusing, and yet interesting is how I would describe it in as shorter way as possible.
It might not be as all-round entertaining as I hoped. But it is still a very powerful movie with a story that needed to be shown to the world, and boy does it make you hate bankers even more.
Rating: 7/10
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