Just as in “The Laundromat” some big actors joined forces to criticize the Western financial system.
In the early 2000’ies former doctor Michael Burry (Christian Bale) finds a flaw in the American banking system. He expects the mortgage system to collapse and thinks of a way to turn that into a profit for the organisation that he now works for.
His idea is picked up by Jared Vennett (Ryan Goslin) who goes to the criticaster of the financial system Mark Baum to also turn the predicted event into profit. Two young dare-investors accidentally see the documents of Burry and they pick up the same plan consulting Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt).
The problem that Burry found was that the portfolios of mortgages of banks are no longer filled with (very secure) mortgages, but less secure investments are sneaked in which on their turn are put in another package, etc. etc. These packages are rated, but due to competition, ratings are always good and they say nothing about the security of an investment.
First individually, later conjoined, the different troupes start to make sense of the complex schemes that financial businesses use to sell their products and make the most profit. These complexities are explained in strange interludes. Basically “The Big Short” is more of a movie than a documentary about the gigantic financial crisis of two decades ago, that some saw coming.
Not quite the film that I thought that I was going to watch.
