Does the revelation that the American financial system is a complete fraud, a rigged game, go down smoother if the message is delivered in the form of a zany mockumentary-style comedy? Director Adam McKay thinks so. The Saturday Night Live alum, whose film work includes outlandish comedies like Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers, brings his trademark screwball style to the inside story of the economic crash of 2008. While the wacky comedy is firmly in place, The Big Short is also a departure for McKay, dealing with some very serious themes like what happens to the rest of us when members of the elite financial system decide to treat the economy like it's a casino. McKay’s sensibilities are a little too over the top for the story he wants to tell, but the director shows great promise at blending comedy and drama.
There’s an obvious comparison to be made to Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street. That film dealt with an unscrupulous financial wizard who broke all the rules to make himself a millionaire, and it also uses hyper stylized action and outlandish comedy to tell its story. The reason Wolf works better than The Big Short is because each movie’s goal is different. The Wolf of Wall Street isn’t overly concerned with making the audience understand how Jordan Belfort went about gaming the system. It’s simply a tale of his excesses. The amped up, jittery aesthetic works splendidly to telegraph those excesses. In The Big Short, McKay wants to inform his audience about what went wrong, and he wants us to become angry at the lack of accountability in the aftermath of the crash. The fidgety style McKay employs, while wildly entertaining, distracts from his goals.