Adam McKay has never been particularly subtle about his political views, and it's been interesting watch the way he's worked things into big broad comedies. It's remarkable that a film featuring The Rock and Sam Jackson dying as cartoonishly as they do in “The Other Guys” can also feature a closing-credits sequence that was more savage and on-point than any documentary released that year about the financial malfeasance in the air.
Now McKay has decided to finally tackle this head-on, and at the exact moment I got an e-mail announcing that “The Big Short” would be closing this year's AFI Fest, the first trailer for the movie also showed up, and I'm excited by what it promises.
I like that Plan B is part of things as well, and obviously the match of material by Michael Lewis and a performance by Brad Pitt invites immediate comparisons to “Moneyball.” McKay adapted the script with Charles Randolph, and the short synopsis offers up a no-nonsense description of what we can expect from the film.
When four outsiders saw what the big banks, media and government refused to, the global collapse of the economy, they had an idea: The Big Short. Their bold investment leads them into the dark underbelly of modern banking where they must question everyone and everything. Based on the true story and best-selling book by Michael Lewis (The Blind Side, Moneyball), and directed by Adam Mckay (Anchorman, Step Brothers) The Big Short stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt.
It's one of the most eclectic casts that McKay's ever put together, including Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, Hamish Linklater, Karen Gillan, Selena Gomez and Rafe Spall, and seeing what McKay does with Bale and Gosling is as exciting as any comedy he's ever made. It's going to be interesting watching the next few Gosling movies. I've seen some stuff from the Shane Black film “The Nice Guys” that is so profoundly different from anything we've seen him do before that it's kind of thrilling. It's also been a while since we've seen him, since his last released film was “Only God Forgives,” so I'm glad to see him showing up in such unexpected places.
“The Big Short” arrives in theaters December 11, 2015.