‘Big Short’ long on acting
“The Big Short” overflows with signs — dollar signs.
With the R-rated picture, one of 2015’s best, Adam McKay, whose credits include the hit Will Ferrell vehicles “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “The Other Guys,” takes Michael Lewis’ bestseller about the subprime mortgage crisis and transforms it into a stinging R-rated satire and a smart must-see movie.
The filmmaker paints an uncomfortable picture of how the country barely avoided a crippling financial meltdown that four astute financial-world wheeler-dealers saw coming when no one else did.
McKay’s actor wish list — Brad Pitt (who also produced), Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling — all immediately agreed to star in “The Big Short,” which unfolds during mid-2000.
McKay, a native of Malvern, Pennsylvania, worked for two seasons as the head writer of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
In an interview in the current issue of Rolling Stone, he talks about being blown away by Lewis’ book and reveals that he invented some lines about how such a crisis impacts much more on two financially struggling groups than anyone else.
“That’s the one time you could feel me commenting in the movie,” the 47-year-old director says in the magazine. “Although I would argue that’s just a fact: When the economy goes south and no one knows why, they blame immigrants and poor people.”