The Big Short

The Big Short is based on real people and true events surrounding the financial crisis of 2007/8. It is based on the book by financial journalist Michael Lewis.

It is about collateralised debt obligations, sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps, bundling... Warning some of the financial jargon may go well over your head.

Not to worry, the producers have assumed that the audience will be blissfully ignorant of such matters and have enlisted the likes of Margot Robbie (in the bath) and a celebrity chef to help explain things in some of the frequent off the wall moments in the film. 

The film itself focuses on four fringe Wall Street players starting with the eccentric financial analyst Michael Burry (Christian Bale). Burry saw what nobody else wanted to see, that the housing market was based on an increasing number of dodgy loans to people who should never have been considered in the first place. He saw it as inevitable that the market was going to collapse but of course no one believed him.

Burry had complete autonomy of the investment fund he controlled and so he created a commodity for his clients betting against these mortgages. When he went to the banks to explain what he wanted to do they simply laughed at him and willingly sold him all the ‘insurance’ he wanted. 

Word of Burry's madness quickly spread and trader Jarred Bennett (Ryan Gosling) gets in on the act. He sells the idea to a group led by a cynical and depressed banker called Mark Baum (Steve Carell). Baum is the boss of a fund under the umbrella of Morgan Stanley, now he is betting against the hand that feeds him.

Finally, there's Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), a couple of rookies trying to break into the finance industry. They team up with disaffected former banker Brad Rickert (Brad Pitt) to bet against the investments. 

What they all ultimately find is that the investment houses ignore the coming crisis and in fact attempt to hide it because they were all making too much money to want it to stop. The film goes on to suggest that the corruption didn’t stop there and extended to the agencies who oversee the markets and possibly beyond.

The film succeeds in making a story about the financial crisis entertaining and that’s no mean feat. Although it could be viewed as a partner piece to 2011's Margin Call which achieved the same feat and is also well worth seeing.

The Big Short is a smart, clever film with some great acting performances. It could even be the best of this year and is well worthy of its Oscar nominations.

Bone Tomahawk

We’re in the American Wild West where a couple of unsavoury villainous types make the mistake of taking a short cut through a burial ground. As a consequence one is brutally killed whilst the other runs for his life all the way to the town of Bright Hope. This is unfortunate for some of the residents there.

Come the morning several people are missing. One of those is the town doctor Samantha O'Dwyer (Lili Simmons) who had been tending to a man who had been shot in the leg as well as to her husband Arthur (Patrick Wilson) who was recuperating from a broken leg.

An arrow embedded in the wall leads everyone to assume they have been kidnapped by the local tribe of cannibalistic troglodytes (aka cavemen).A task force is dispatched on a rescue mission which consists of the sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell), his backup deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins), a chap called John Brooder (Matthew Fox) who seems simply to come along for the chance to shoot somebody and Arthur himself who won’t be left behind.

The first half of the film is the story of this motley bunch traversing the wilderness day and night as they travel to their destination. During this time, we get expanded knowledge about the men but sadly none of them seem particularly interesting and although they get attacked quite often not a lot else really happens.

That is until they get where they are headed and they are clearly unprepared for what is waiting there for them.

Arthur has already been left behind after his injury impeded their progress once they lost their horses (a long story). By the time he eventually gets there by following an improbable trail of rocks and crawling most of it, things are already getting a bit difficult for the others. The savages turn out to be, well, savage. Really savage which we get to see in quite impressive detail.

They have at least found those who had been kidnapped, well, the ones who hadn’t been eaten yet and Samantha is fine. They clearly have shampoo in the caves because our damsel in distress still has her lustrous blonde hair despite being locked in a cage for a week.

This film is certainly an acquired taste (if you excuse the pun) but it does showcase one thing that Hollywood is sorely lacking these days and that’s originality but its perhaps best seen from the behind the sofa.

Trumbo

Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was the highest paid writer in Hollywood in the 1940s and arguably the best. He was also a member of the Communist Party which, while this wasn’t illegal, it wasn’t popular with the paranoid government of the day.

Trumbo, along with many others, was hauled before the delightfully named ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’ to explain themselves and to implicate others. The notorious Hollywood Ten, which included Trumbo, refused to cooperate and stood up against what they saw as unfair treatment of their beliefs. There was never any evidence that any of them were spying for Russia. As a result though, many of them including Trumbo were sent to prison for contempt.

The committee wasn’t satisfied with simply jailing people and they also blacklisted them so that they couldn’t work in the film industry. The committee had significant backing from the likes of John Wayne (David James Elliott) who was president of the equally delightfully named ‘Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals’ and odious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren).

In order to survive some, many such as Trumbo, took their work underground and began writing or directing under false names. It was harder for actors to work anonymously and others, such as Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg), gave in and cooperated with committee.

Trumbo ends up working for Frank King (John Goodman) whose studio produced cheap trashy B movies which involved Trumbo working on the cheap and effectively working around the clock fuelled by alcohol and Benzedrine. This made him very unpopular at home with his wife (Diane Lane) and daughter (Elle Fanning) but who to their credit back him in his fight against the system. His daughter evolves into a younger version of his own stubborn self.

Trumbo also managed to work secretly on several bigger projects causing Ian McLellan Hunter (Alan Tudyk) to pick up the Academy Award for writing ‘Roman Holiday’ when actually it was Trumbo who wrote it. Trumbo goes onto win other awards under various pseudonyms for which he didn’t receive any credit at the time.

It is an absorbing story and a good history lesson which also includes some real archive footage. Trumbo won several Oscars for his work and it would be quite fitting if this film won something too but I don’t think that is the way the wind is blowing.

Spotlight

‘Spotlight’ opens in 1976 Boston with a Catholic priest being been accused of molesting a child. Then the film fast forwards to 2001 where... priests are still being been accused of abusing children and still nothing is being done about it.

2001 was about the time that internet news was just starting to replace newspapers for most people and The Boston Globe is subsequently suffering from falling readership. In comes new managing editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) who tasks the Globe’s ‘Spotlight’ investigative team at the Boston Globe with taking a fresh look at the abuse cases with the local Catholic Church. It was a good thing he did.

The team of Editor Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson (Michael Keaton) together with reporters Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carrol (Brian d'Arcy James) begin digging for information.

Boston though is a small town full of insular Catholics who would rather bury their head in the sand. They don't want to rock the boat or upset the gravy train and many simply point to the church's charity work as a sign the church is only a force for the good. The Globe itself hasn’t even been interested in the past because most of its readers are also Catholics. Baron is neither a local nor a catholic and doesn’t care about any of these things.

The team belatedly listen to Phil Saviano (Neal Huff) the leader of a victims group and Rezendes persuades Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) an Armenian attorney working for some on the victims to let them start interviewing his clients.

Gradually the team uncover a pattern of child abuse by the church that has been covered up by lawyers who have organised pay offs to the victim's families and by the church itself through reassignment of the abusive priests to new parishes, where they can start over again. Abusing that is.

The team discover that there are more incidences than suspected, far more and that go far beyond Boston. Eventually after having to take a step back when 9/11 hits the story eventually breaks in January 2002. 

This is a true story, for which the Globe won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003, well told. There is no media agenda portrayed here, no setups, no hidden cameras, no honey traps, just brilliant investigative journalism. How refreshingly old school.

It makes for a riveting watch from beginning to end. There is no forced comedy, no romantic sub-plots and no trumped-up action scenes. What’s more there is no grandstanding for awards, yet if there’s any film out right now that feels like an Oscar winner, this is probably it.

Film of the year so far...