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  • Reviews: The Big Short (2015)
  • 2015 Films

Reviews: The Big Short (2015)

Governing Committee December 10, 2015 7 minutes read

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big_short

big_shortHere are review links for this film submitted by our members:

  • Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
    • Excerpt: Ed è proprio questa la grande scommessa del cinema americano, che è capace di fare spettacolo anche con numeri e prodotti finanziari, traducendo complesse analisi finanziarie in termini essenziali, perchè questo è un film che vuole rivolgersi al grande pubblico, con un racconto onesto, efficacissimo e assolutamente necessario.
  • Dragan Antulov @ FAK.hr [Croatian]
    • Excerpt: Komedija tamne prirode u kojoj je financijska apokalipsa prikazana na sarkastican, vješt i inovativan nacin.
  • [New – 2/25/16] | Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
  • José Arce @ LaButaca.net [Spanish]
    • Excerpt: Adam McKay no sumerge en el entorno de los seres individuales que anticiparon la catástrofe económica global que arrancó en 2008. Una película dura en sus formas estructurales pero muy divertida.
  • Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire
    • Excerpt: Adam McKay proves himself an adroit chronicler of more serious stories than ‘Step Brothers’ with this unlikely but oddly effective mixture of dark comedy, character study, based-on-a-true-story drama, rabble-rousing, and detective story. Like ‘Steve Jobs,’ this is a movie in love with the sound of shoptalk, its characters yelling, joking, prodding, and chattering their way around anyone who can’t keep up.
  • Chris Barsanti @ PopMatters
    • Excerpt: Adam McKay’s film is a ragged, jolting, and savagely funny guerrilla agitprop that gives after-the-fact credit to the financial crises Cassandras.
  • Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ Spirituality & Practice
    • Excerpt: A snappy and disquieting portrait of the wheeler-dealers who made a fortune off the 2008 financial crisis.
  • Francisco Cangiano @ CineXpress [Spanish]
    • Excerpt: The Big Short se une al grupo de las mejores películas del año gracias a un excelente elenco, una energética dirección por McKay, y un entretenido y cómico guión que simplifica el complicado mundo de la economía. La historia que el largometraje cuenta es interesante y asombrosa, al igual que espantosa y vergonzosa. Es como un ver venir un accidente de vehículos, y no poder alejar la mirada. The Big Short definitivamente merece tu atención. Y luego, posiblemente necesitarás darte un baño.
  • Robert Cashill @ Popdose.com
  • Bill Clark @ From The Balcony
    • Excerpt: The Big Short is a crackling, live entertainment that elicits as many laughs as jaws agape that this could happen.
  • Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
    • Excerpt: an illuminating film, equal parts horror and hilarity. With Steve Carell leading one of the finest ensembles of the year, “The Big Short” entertains while explaining just what happened to those who don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond
  • Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
    • Excerpt: McKay tries to do for the financial crisis what Traffic and Fast Food Nation did for the drug war and fast food, but since the principle cast consists entirely of white dudes in suits, most of whom end up reiterating the same pieces of information, its attempts at thoroughness feel half-hearted.
  • Derek Deskins @ Next Projection
    • Excerpt: The Big Short is a fast-moving, well-written, captivating drama that manages to make you laugh at what are some pretty awful situations.
  • Jim Dixon @ Examiner.com
    • Excerpt: Director Adam McKay (“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” “Step Brothers,” “The Other Guys”) may have seemed like an unlikely choice for this material, but his freewheeling style, coupled with the script’s scathing wit and boisterous irreverence, mirror the indignation and contempt the audience is likely to feel for the banker’s gray pinstripe establishment that engineered this disaster in the first place.
  • Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
    • Excerpt: This is a film filled with quiet moral outrage. It doesn’t need to yell. It doesn’t need to sermonize. It simply needs to tell us what happened…
  • James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
  • Candice Frederick @ Reel Talk Online
  • Kimberly Gadette @ doddle
    • Excerpt: With punch and pop, the film recounts the true story of 4 disparate outsiders who are far enough removed from the center of the action to see it for what it’s worth … and for what it’s not.
  • Hugo Gomes @ Cinematograficamente Falando … [Portuguese]
  • Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
    • Excerpt: This grimly comic drama is timely, yet perplexing, concluding that financial institutions are still corrupt…
  • Vadym Grygoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
  • Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
    • Excerpt: The cheeky tale details a economic armageddon that wildly vacillates between comedic and dramatic extremes.
  • Courtney Howard @ FreshFiction.tv
    • Excerpt: It’s sly, intelligent, wickedly witty and should be fundamental viewing for the American public.
  • MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
    • Excerpt: An infuriating yet entertaining look at the “other guys” of the 2008 financial crash. You will want you want to weep. While you’re laughing! *sob*
  • Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
    • Excerpt: Director Adam McKay wants you to get upset; he want you to walk out of the theater outraged Wall Street crooks got away with it all and will most likely do it again. The Big Short is here to scare you, to perplex you, and guarantees you will talk about it for days afterward.
  • Steve Katz @ The Alpha Primitive
    • Excerpt: While there are times McKay’s film is enjoyable to watch, and while the performances are decent and the writing can be solid from time to time, there are too many stumbles and hitches along the way that prevent it from picking up steam. It is tough to call The Big Short a failure because it never stops being interesting and its heart is squarely in the right place, but it does not succeed in its goals.
  • Jennie Kermode @ Eye For Film
  • Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
    • Excerpt: “The Big Short” is vital as a real-world tragedy but also scathingly funny as a snarky, damnatory black comedy.
  • Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
  • Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
  • Alan Mattli @ Facing the Bitter Truth [German]
    • Excerpt: Fire needs to be fought with fire – which is exactly what ‘The Big Short’ is doing; brazenly ridiculing Wall Street by focusing on its unadulterated labyrinthine absurdity.
  • Matthew McKernan @ FilmWhinge
    • Excerpt: Sadly, the filmmakers simply do not have enough trust in their material.
  • Nell Minow @ The Movie Mom
  • Simon Miraudo @ Student Edge
  • Jared Mobarak @ Jared Mobarak Reviews
    • Excerpt: Yes they’re caricatures when all is said and done, but that type of satirical bent on an insane truth is what allows us laypeople to enter with confidence. McKay and Randolph dumb things down by continuously breaking the fourth wall so the story can be told as an anecdote rather than thesis number-crunch.
  • Darren Mooney @ the m0vie blog
    • Excerpt: Bank on it.
  • João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
  • Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
    • Excerpt: The system itself is designed to be so complex that even those inside of it don’t fully comprehend it. “Sound confusing?” Gosling’s character asks us. “That’s the point.” But what The Big Short does exceptionally well is explain the basics in layman’s terms.
  • Nuno Reis @ Antestreia [Portuguese]
    • Excerpt: Adam McKay conseguiu pegar num tema que não tem nada de divertido e torná-lo apelativo para um leque alargado de público. Brincou com um assunto sério, explicou a economia como se fizesse sentido, e desmascarou os especialistas como uns incompetentes que, por estarem no lugar certo à hora certa, acabaram a carregar nuns botões que controlam as vidas dos outros.
  • Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
    • Excerpt: Can we save ourselves in a corrupt system that we are all slaves to? Here’s a movie that raises this question without missing a beat for humor.
  • Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
    • Excerpt: Smart and manic, it might leave you more with a bit of a queasiness and exhaustion rather than the outrage it’s aiming for, but at least it doesn’t stiff you.
  • Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
    • Excerpt: Jumping back and forth among so many characters makes this important film hard to follow.
  • Rob Wallis @ Of All the Film Blogs
    • Excerpt: The Big Short makes for a highly entertaining (and instructive) study of greed, fraud, and the three groups of people who sought to profit from the meltdown before it happened.

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