Movie - The Big Short (8½/10)

I was in New York in the Autumn of 2008. I’d decided to take a year out as the UK seemed to be going to the dogs. While I was abroad, it was heart breaking to learn that we’d lost Woolworths from the High Street.According to this film depicting the financial meltdown of that time, the worst was indeed to come. We all know now that America was selling bad mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them and no-one did anything to stop them, leading the worlds' financial collapse.The Big Short is about a group of people running a hedge fund, Front Point, who believed the banking industry to be fraudulent and they bet against the seemingly rock-solid housing market. Simultaneously, there are a pair of young geeks and a mathematical genius – the first person to realise this was happening - also making bets against, what we are told time and time again has never happened in American history. They don’t know each other and we watch as they wait for what they’ve foreseen to slowly unfold, with all their vulnerabilities on display.First, the hedge fund four research to see if what they are thinking is really going to happen, they meet estate agents bragging about how easy it was to make good money selling (multiple) mortgages to people who couldn’t afford it. Later, we see them going to an Ikea recruitment fair.

 I don't get it. Why are they confessing? They're not confessing. They're bragging.

The powers that be – the finance industry – try everything they can to stop it happening and believe their own reputation. Then Bear Stearns crashes and their worst/best nightmare begins to become real. In the film, this is played at in real-time as a senior bod from the firm is on a TV programme telling the world it is impossible while everyone’s Blackberrys’ are pinging with the news Bear Stearns is collapsing.According to the credits, the bubble burst leaving 8 million jobless and 6 million homeless. Just in the USA.And no idiot banker has gone to prison. Not that I wish that on anyone but for the rest of us that reside happily outside the finance industry, it’s beyond belief that nothing has changed and there is no deterrent.Considering this was only a few years ago, the excellent all-star cast are barely recognisable in their noughties get-ups. The things that should irritate in a film – talking to camera, narration, random actors turning up as themselves – don’t. They are just short enough to add to the humour.The Big Short is packed with detail. It’s a must-see.Some cinema goers came out of seeing this stunning film saddened. It heightened the dangerous and dark underbelly of the financial world. For me the humour dominated but if anything, having the blanks in my knowledge filled in made me feel anger. The same anger I felt in 2008 that made me leave the country8½/10Smile factor 8/10