Adapted from Michael Lewis’ 2010 book of the same name, the movie features characters based on real people and uses a multi-stranded approach to tell the story of how on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis, several Wall Street elites, with their keen insight and unique investment vision, detected the falsity of the bubble even before the crisis hit, and thus gained a huge amount of profit from the financial turmoil.
Through the characters’ dialogues and inner monologues, the film presents the complex financial concepts in civilian language, making it possible for ordinary viewers to understand how financial instruments such as CDOs and MBS led to the collapse of the global economy.
2015 / USA / Drama Biography / Adam McKay / Christian Bale Steve Carell
Plot Synopsis:
In the 2008 global financial crisis, several discerning investment gurus on Wall Street saw through the bubble illusion before the 2007 U.S. credit storm and profited substantially by shorting subprime CDSs, making them the few investment lords who profited massively from the financial catastrophe.
Jared Weinert (Ryan Gosling) will be a Deutsche Bank agent who can turn a $4 billion order into $3.7 billion in revenue, Michael Bury (Christian Bale) is a one-eyed fund manager, Mark Baum (Steve Carell) is from a Wall Street family, and Ben Hockett (Brad Pitt) is a retired Cornwall Capital banker.
