🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 97 (from laksa054)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa097.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-short-2015\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-short-2015\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-big-short-2015","crawl_time":1775793423,"first_indexed_time":1451474596,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,rogerebert!www,\/reviews\/the-big-short-2015 s443","src_root_hash":"7554834309041482497","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"The Big Short movie review & film summary review:","meta_descriptions":["The Big Short is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, but also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.”"],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"The pre-release buzz is true: This is not your father’s \nfinancial crisis movie. Nor, for that matter, is it “\nThe Wolf of Wall Street\n.” \nThe money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories \nare interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient \namount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced \nsense of smell. The closest to a “\nWolf\n”-like character here is\nRyan Gosling\n’s \nJared Vennett, the most standard-issue suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch, \nand part of his schtick is to stand in a conference room sniffing \nostentatiously because, yes, he smells money.\nThe money smelt, and earned, by the adventurers of this \nstory of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is arguably tainted by bad \nkarma. Based on a book by\nMichael Lewis\n, “The Big Short” is about how several \ntraders and hedge fund managers made fortunes because they saw that the housing \nmarket’s decline would cause a collapse of bonds contrived from sub-prime \nmortgages. The terminology is both dry and dizzying, the machinations \nincredibly convoluted. The main thesis of the story, adapted for the screen by \ndirector\nAdam McKay\nand his co-screenwriter\nCharles Randolph\n, is that as \nbanking became the top industry of the United States, bankers deliberately \nconcocted Byzantine financial tools whose main function was to help the rich \nget richer and screw over the little guy. You can expect a lot of pushback \nagainst this film of the “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off \ncriticizing income inequality” but that won’t mean the movie is wrong.\nAnd it really is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, \nbut also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.” The film intertwines \nthree discrete storylines. The first focuses on\nChristian Bale\n’s Michael Burry, \na trained physician with very stunted social skills whose genius at analysis \nand numbers-crunching found him running a very successful West Coast hedge \nfund. After finding some terrifying data within the structures of a large \nnumber of mortgage bonds, he concocts a radical idea: to “short,” that is, bet against, \nthe housing bond market, which the banks have puffed up as being unassailable. \nTo do this he has to convince those banks to create a new financial tool, a \nkind of bond insurance policy. If Burry’s right and the market collapses, he \nand his hedge fund make stupid money. But for as long as the market stays \nstable, Burry and his fund are obliged to pay stupid money in premiums.\nMcKay\nis best known as the director of such comedic fare as \n“Anchorman,” and, for all the silly self-reflexive humor in those films, there’s \na sly underlying intelligence animating them, and here that takes the form of \ncelebrity cameos wherein attractive people such as\nMargot Robbie\nand Selena \nGomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of \nterms such as “sub-prime.” He also enlists “Anchorman” rep company member Steve \nCarell for one main role, as financial Prophet of Doom Mark Baum, whose own \nfund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of \nthe action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s \nself-torturing character is likely the closest thing this movie has to a \ndirectorial surrogate.\nFinn Wittrock\nand\nJohn Magaro\nplay a couple of Jim \nHenson’s Hedge Fund Babies, mentored by\nBrad Pitt\n’s Ben Rickert. Rickert’s \ncharacter can be read as something of a slight sendup of Pitt’s own current \ndo-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who left the game out of \ndisgust, and who preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two \nyoung acolytes even as he helps them get pretty much super-rich.\nI started off feeling skeptical about this movie: the \nhairstyles and clothes of the main characters were more ‘90s music-video than \nearly 2000s, and the sometimes-color-desaturated flashbacks to some characters’ \nback stories were a little on the drearily commonplace side. But the narrative \nmomentum, combined with the profane wit of much of the dialogue, and the \ncommitted acting going on beneath the hairpieces, all did their job. And they \ngot across the angry, pessimistic conviction behind the movie, which is that \nthe major banks all engaged in fraudulent, criminal activity, and that the U.S. \ngovernment bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there’s \nno indication that the banks aren’t going to do something like the exact same \nthing all over again. You are free to disagree. But this is a movie that uses \nboth cinema art and irrefutable facts to make its case. It’s strong stuff. ","attrs_markdown":"[![Roger Ebert Logo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/roger-ebert-logo.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/)   [![Search Icon](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/search-thin.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/search)   [Signup](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/prime)\n\n- [Movie Reviews](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews)\n- [Great Movies](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/great-movies)\n- [TV\/Streaming](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/streaming)\n- [Interviews](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/interviews)\n- [Collections](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/collections)\n- [Festivals & Awards](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/festivals-and-awards)\n- [Contributors](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contributors)\n\n[Reviews](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews)\n\n# The Big Short\n![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars.svg)\n\n[Drama](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/genre\/drama)\n\n130 minutes  ‧ R  ‧ 2015\n\n[Glenn Kenny](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contributors\/glenn-kenny)\n\nDecember 10, 2015\n\n4 min read\n\n![](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/The-Big-Short.jpg)\n\nThe pre-release buzz is true: This is not your father’s financial crisis movie. Nor, for that matter, is it “[The Wolf of Wall Street](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-wolf-of-wall-street-2013).” The money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories are interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient amount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced sense of smell. The closest to a “[Wolf](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/wolf-1994)”-like character here is [Ryan Gosling](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ryan-gosling)’s Jared Vennett, the most standard-issue suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch, and part of his schtick is to stand in a conference room sniffing ostentatiously because, yes, he smells money.\n\nThe money smelt, and earned, by the adventurers of this story of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is arguably tainted by bad karma. Based on a book by [Michael Lewis](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/michael-lewis), “The Big Short” is about how several traders and hedge fund managers made fortunes because they saw that the housing market’s decline would cause a collapse of bonds contrived from sub-prime mortgages. The terminology is both dry and dizzying, the machinations incredibly convoluted. The main thesis of the story, adapted for the screen by director [Adam McKay](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/adam-mckay) and his co-screenwriter [Charles Randolph](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/charles-randolph), is that as banking became the top industry of the United States, bankers deliberately concocted Byzantine financial tools whose main function was to help the rich get richer and screw over the little guy. You can expect a lot of pushback against this film of the “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off criticizing income inequality” but that won’t mean the movie is wrong.\n\nAnd it really is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, but also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.” The film intertwines three discrete storylines. The first focuses on [Christian Bale](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/christian-bale)’s Michael Burry, a trained physician with very stunted social skills whose genius at analysis and numbers-crunching found him running a very successful West Coast hedge fund. After finding some terrifying data within the structures of a large number of mortgage bonds, he concocts a radical idea: to “short,” that is, bet against, the housing bond market, which the banks have puffed up as being unassailable. To do this he has to convince those banks to create a new financial tool, a kind of bond insurance policy. If Burry’s right and the market collapses, he and his hedge fund make stupid money. But for as long as the market stays stable, Burry and his fund are obliged to pay stupid money in premiums.\n\n[McKay](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/mckay) is best known as the director of such comedic fare as “Anchorman,” and, for all the silly self-reflexive humor in those films, there’s a sly underlying intelligence animating them, and here that takes the form of celebrity cameos wherein attractive people such as [Margot Robbie](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/margot-robbie) and Selena Gomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of terms such as “sub-prime.” He also enlists “Anchorman” rep company member Steve Carell for one main role, as financial Prophet of Doom Mark Baum, whose own fund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of the action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s self-torturing character is likely the closest thing this movie has to a directorial surrogate. [Finn Wittrock](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/finn-wittrock) and [John Magaro](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/john-magaro) play a couple of Jim Henson’s Hedge Fund Babies, mentored by [Brad Pitt](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/brad-pitt)’s Ben Rickert. Rickert’s character can be read as something of a slight sendup of Pitt’s own current do-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who left the game out of disgust, and who preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two young acolytes even as he helps them get pretty much super-rich.\n\nI started off feeling skeptical about this movie: the hairstyles and clothes of the main characters were more ‘90s music-video than early 2000s, and the sometimes-color-desaturated flashbacks to some characters’ back stories were a little on the drearily commonplace side. But the narrative momentum, combined with the profane wit of much of the dialogue, and the committed acting going on beneath the hairpieces, all did their job. And they got across the angry, pessimistic conviction behind the movie, which is that the major banks all engaged in fraudulent, criminal activity, and that the U.S. government bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there’s no indication that the banks aren’t going to do something like the exact same thing all over again. You are free to disagree. But this is a movie that uses both cinema art and irrefutable facts to make its case. It’s strong stuff.\n\nNow streaming on:\n\n[Powered by ![JustWatch](https:\/\/widget.justwatch.com\/assets\/JW_logo_black_10px.svg)](https:\/\/www.justwatch.com\/)\n\n![](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Glenn-Kenny.jpg)\n\n##### [Glenn Kenny](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contributors\/glenn-kenny)\nGlenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire [here](http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/balder-and-dash\/meet-the-writers-glenn-kenny).\n\n#### The Big Short\n[Drama](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/genre\/drama)\n\n![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars.svg)\n\n130 minutes  ‧ R  ‧ 2015\n\n![](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Big-Short-jpg.webp)\n\n#### Cast\n- [Rafe Spall](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/rafe-spall) as Danny Moses\n- [Finn Wittrock](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/finn-wittrock) as Jamie Shipley\n- [Christian Bale](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/christian-bale) as Michael Burry\n- [Steve Carell](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/steve-carell) as Mark Baum\n- [Al Sapienza](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/al-sapienza) as Dan Detone\n- [Brad Pitt](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/brad-pitt) as Ben Rickert\n- [Tracy Letts](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/tracy-letts) as Lawrence Fields\n- [John Magaro](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/john-magaro) as Charlie Geller\n- [Karen Gillan](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/karen-gillan) as Evie\n- [Byron Mann](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/byron-mann) as Mr. Chau\n- [Jeremy Strong](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/jeremy-strong) as Vinny Daniel\n- [Ryan Gosling](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ryan-gosling) as Jared Vennett\n- [Melissa Leo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/melissa-leo) as Georgia Hale\n- [Marisa Tomei](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/marisa-tomei) as Cynthia Baum\n- [Hamish Linklater](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/hamish-linklater) as Porter Collins\n\n- #### Director\n  - [Adam McKay](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/adam-mckay)\n- #### Screenplay\n  - [Adam McKay](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/adam-mckay)\n  - [Charles Randolph](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/charles-randolph)\n- #### Director of Photography\n  - [Barry Ackroyd](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/barry-ackroyd)\n- #### Editor\n  - [Brent White](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/brent-white)\n- #### Novel\n  - [Michael Lewis](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/michael-lewis)\n- #### Composer\n  - [Nicholas Britell](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/nicholas-britell)\n\n#### Leave a comment\nPlease enable JavaScript to view the  [comments powered by Disqus.](https:\/\/disqus.com\/?ref_noscript)\n\n***\n#### Now playing\n[![Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still 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Matt Zoller Seitz ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/a-magnificent-life-animated-film-review-2026)\n\n[![John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MV5BZDljN2ZkNGItOGRlMC00NmYxLWExNDctOWNjZjczZTQyMTAwXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_-256x378.jpg) John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office Clint Worthington ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/john-lilly-and-the-earth-coincidence-control-office-documentary-movie-review-2026)\n\n[![Forbidden Fruits](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MV5BMDA1MDRhOTAtMmFjNi00MmUwLWI4MjYtY2ExN2U0YmYwMmQwXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_-256x379.jpg) Forbidden Fruits Zachary Lee ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/forbidden-fruits-movie-review-2026)\n\n***\n#### Latest articles\n[![](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2026_CANNES_SIGNATURES_WEB_COULEUR-1_2560x1440-500x281.jpg) Festivals & Awards Cannes Announces 2026 Program with New Films by Pedro Almodovar, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Asghar Farhadi, More 7 hours ago](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/festivals\/cannes-announces-2026-program-with-new-films-by-pedro-almodovar-hirokazu-kore-eda-asghar-farhadi-more)\n\n[![Big Mistakes 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logo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/x-icon.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-big-short-2015)\n\n“Roger Ebert Loved Movies” [In Memoriam 1942 - 2013](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/memoriam)\n\n![Photo of Roger Ebert In Memoriam](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/roger-pic.png)\n\nEbert Digital LLC © Copyright 2026\n\n- [Terms of use](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/terms-of-use)\n- [Privacy Policy](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/privacy-policy)","attrs_readable_markdown":"The pre-release buzz is true: This is not your father’s financial crisis movie. Nor, for that matter, is it “[The Wolf of Wall Street](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-wolf-of-wall-street-2013).” The money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories are interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient amount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced sense of smell. The closest to a “[Wolf](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/wolf-1994)”-like character here is [Ryan Gosling](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ryan-gosling)’s Jared Vennett, the most standard-issue suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch, and part of his schtick is to stand in a conference room sniffing ostentatiously because, yes, he smells money.\n\nThe money smelt, and earned, by the adventurers of this story of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is arguably tainted by bad karma. Based on a book by [Michael Lewis](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/michael-lewis), “The Big Short” is about how several traders and hedge fund managers made fortunes because they saw that the housing market’s decline would cause a collapse of bonds contrived from sub-prime mortgages. The terminology is both dry and dizzying, the machinations incredibly convoluted. The main thesis of the story, adapted for the screen by director [Adam McKay](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/adam-mckay) and his co-screenwriter [Charles Randolph](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/charles-randolph), is that as banking became the top industry of the United States, bankers deliberately concocted Byzantine financial tools whose main function was to help the rich get richer and screw over the little guy. You can expect a lot of pushback against this film of the “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off criticizing income inequality” but that won’t mean the movie is wrong.\n\nAnd it really is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, but also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.” The film intertwines three discrete storylines. The first focuses on [Christian Bale](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/christian-bale)’s Michael Burry, a trained physician with very stunted social skills whose genius at analysis and numbers-crunching found him running a very successful West Coast hedge fund. After finding some terrifying data within the structures of a large number of mortgage bonds, he concocts a radical idea: to “short,” that is, bet against, the housing bond market, which the banks have puffed up as being unassailable. To do this he has to convince those banks to create a new financial tool, a kind of bond insurance policy. If Burry’s right and the market collapses, he and his hedge fund make stupid money. But for as long as the market stays stable, Burry and his fund are obliged to pay stupid money in premiums.\n\n[McKay](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/mckay) is best known as the director of such comedic fare as “Anchorman,” and, for all the silly self-reflexive humor in those films, there’s a sly underlying intelligence animating them, and here that takes the form of celebrity cameos wherein attractive people such as [Margot Robbie](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/margot-robbie) and Selena Gomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of terms such as “sub-prime.” He also enlists “Anchorman” rep company member Steve Carell for one main role, as financial Prophet of Doom Mark Baum, whose own fund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of the action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s self-torturing character is likely the closest thing this movie has to a directorial surrogate. [Finn Wittrock](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/finn-wittrock) and [John Magaro](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/john-magaro) play a couple of Jim Henson’s Hedge Fund Babies, mentored by [Brad Pitt](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/brad-pitt)’s Ben Rickert. Rickert’s character can be read as something of a slight sendup of Pitt’s own current do-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who left the game out of disgust, and who preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two young acolytes even as he helps them get pretty much super-rich.\n\nI started off feeling skeptical about this movie: the hairstyles and clothes of the main characters were more ‘90s music-video than early 2000s, and the sometimes-color-desaturated flashbacks to some characters’ back stories were a little on the drearily commonplace side. But the narrative momentum, combined with the profane wit of much of the dialogue, and the committed acting going on beneath the hairpieces, all did their job. And they got across the angry, pessimistic conviction behind the movie, which is that the major banks all engaged in fraudulent, criminal activity, and that the U.S. government bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there’s no indication that the banks aren’t going to do something like the exact same thing all over again. You are free to disagree. But this is a movie that uses both cinema art and irrefutable facts to make its case. It’s strong stuff.","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	The pre-release buzz is true: This is not your father’s financial crisis movie. Nor, for that matter, is it “ The Wolf of Wall Street .” The money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories are interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient amount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced sense of smell. The closest to a “ Wolf ”-like character here is Ryan Gosling ’s Jared Vennett, the most standard-issue suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch, and part of his schtick is to stand in a conference room sniffing ostentatiously because, yes, he smells money. The money smelt, and earned, by the adventurers of this story of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is arguably tainted by bad karma. Based on a book by Michael Lewis , “The Big Short” is about how several traders and hedge fund managers made fortunes because they saw that the housing market’s decline would cause a collapse of bonds contrived from sub-prime mortgages. The terminology is both dry and dizzying, the machinations incredibly convoluted. The main thesis of the story, adapted for the screen by director Adam McKay and his co-screenwriter Charles Randolph , is that as banking became the top industry of the United States, bankers deliberately concocted Byzantine financial tools whose main function was to help the rich get richer and screw over the little guy. You can expect a lot of pushback against this film of the “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off criticizing income inequality” but that won’t mean the movie is wrong. And it really is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, but also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.” The film intertwines three discrete storylines. The first focuses on Christian Bale ’s Michael Burry, a trained physician with very stunted social skills whose genius at analysis and numbers-crunching found him running a very successful West Coast hedge fund. After finding some terrifying data within the structures of a large number of mortgage bonds, he concocts a radical idea: to “short,” that is, bet against, the housing bond market, which the banks have puffed up as being unassailable. To do this he has to convince those banks to create a new financial tool, a kind of bond insurance policy. If Burry’s right and the market collapses, he and his hedge fund make stupid money. But for as long as the market stays stable, Burry and his fund are obliged to pay stupid money in premiums. McKay is best known as the director of such comedic fare as “Anchorman,” and, for all the silly self-reflexive humor in those films, there’s a sly underlying intelligence animating them, and here that takes the form of celebrity cameos wherein attractive people such as Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of terms such as “sub-prime.” He also enlists “Anchorman” rep company member Steve Carell for one main role, as financial Prophet of Doom Mark Baum, whose own fund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of the action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s self-torturing character is likely the closest thing this movie has to a directorial surrogate. Finn Wittrock and John Magaro play a couple of Jim Henson’s Hedge Fund Babies, mentored by Brad Pitt ’s Ben Rickert. Rickert’s character can be read as something of a slight sendup of Pitt’s own current do-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who left the game out of disgust, and who preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two young acolytes even as he helps them get pretty much super-rich. I started off feeling skeptical about this movie: the hairstyles and clothes of the main characters were more ‘90s music-video than early 2000s, and the sometimes-color-desaturated flashbacks to some characters’ back stories were a little on the drearily commonplace side. But the narrative momentum, combined with the profane wit of much of the dialogue, and the committed acting going on beneath the hairpieces, all did their job. And they got across the angry, pessimistic conviction behind the movie, which is that the major banks all engaged in fraudulent, criminal activity, and that the U.S. government bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there’s no indication that the banks aren’t going to do something like the exact same thing all over again. You are free to disagree. But this is a movie that uses both cinema art and irrefutable facts to make its case. It’s strong stuff.
Markdown	[![Roger Ebert Logo](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/roger-ebert-logo.svg)](https://www.rogerebert.com/) [![Search Icon](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/search-thin.svg)](https://www.rogerebert.com/search) [Signup](https://www.rogerebert.com/prime) - [Movie Reviews](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews) - [Great Movies](https://www.rogerebert.com/great-movies) - [TV/Streaming](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming) - [Interviews](https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews) - [Collections](https://www.rogerebert.com/collections) - [Festivals & Awards](https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals-and-awards) - [Contributors](https://www.rogerebert.com/contributors) [Reviews](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews) # The Big Short ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars.svg) [Drama](https://www.rogerebert.com/genre/drama) 130 minutes ‧ R ‧ 2015 [Glenn Kenny](https://www.rogerebert.com/contributors/glenn-kenny) December 10, 2015 4 min read ![](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-Big-Short.jpg) The pre-release buzz is true: This is not your father’s financial crisis movie. Nor, for that matter, is it “[The Wolf of Wall Street](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-wolf-of-wall-street-2013).” The money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories are interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient amount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced sense of smell. The closest to a “[Wolf](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wolf-1994)”-like character here is [Ryan Gosling](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ryan-gosling)’s Jared Vennett, the most standard-issue suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch, and part of his schtick is to stand in a conference room sniffing ostentatiously because, yes, he smells money. The money smelt, and earned, by the adventurers of this story of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is arguably tainted by bad karma. Based on a book by [Michael Lewis](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/michael-lewis), “The Big Short” is about how several traders and hedge fund managers made fortunes because they saw that the housing market’s decline would cause a collapse of bonds contrived from sub-prime mortgages. The terminology is both dry and dizzying, the machinations incredibly convoluted. The main thesis of the story, adapted for the screen by director [Adam McKay](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/adam-mckay) and his co-screenwriter [Charles Randolph](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/charles-randolph), is that as banking became the top industry of the United States, bankers deliberately concocted Byzantine financial tools whose main function was to help the rich get richer and screw over the little guy. You can expect a lot of pushback against this film of the “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off criticizing income inequality” but that won’t mean the movie is wrong. And it really is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, but also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.” The film intertwines three discrete storylines. The first focuses on [Christian Bale](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/christian-bale)’s Michael Burry, a trained physician with very stunted social skills whose genius at analysis and numbers-crunching found him running a very successful West Coast hedge fund. After finding some terrifying data within the structures of a large number of mortgage bonds, he concocts a radical idea: to “short,” that is, bet against, the housing bond market, which the banks have puffed up as being unassailable. To do this he has to convince those banks to create a new financial tool, a kind of bond insurance policy. If Burry’s right and the market collapses, he and his hedge fund make stupid money. But for as long as the market stays stable, Burry and his fund are obliged to pay stupid money in premiums. [McKay](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/mckay) is best known as the director of such comedic fare as “Anchorman,” and, for all the silly self-reflexive humor in those films, there’s a sly underlying intelligence animating them, and here that takes the form of celebrity cameos wherein attractive people such as [Margot Robbie](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/margot-robbie) and Selena Gomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of terms such as “sub-prime.” He also enlists “Anchorman” rep company member Steve Carell for one main role, as financial Prophet of Doom Mark Baum, whose own fund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of the action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s self-torturing character is likely the closest thing this movie has to a directorial surrogate. [Finn Wittrock](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/finn-wittrock) and [John Magaro](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/john-magaro) play a couple of Jim Henson’s Hedge Fund Babies, mentored by [Brad Pitt](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/brad-pitt)’s Ben Rickert. Rickert’s character can be read as something of a slight sendup of Pitt’s own current do-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who left the game out of disgust, and who preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two young acolytes even as he helps them get pretty much super-rich. I started off feeling skeptical about this movie: the hairstyles and clothes of the main characters were more ‘90s music-video than early 2000s, and the sometimes-color-desaturated flashbacks to some characters’ back stories were a little on the drearily commonplace side. But the narrative momentum, combined with the profane wit of much of the dialogue, and the committed acting going on beneath the hairpieces, all did their job. And they got across the angry, pessimistic conviction behind the movie, which is that the major banks all engaged in fraudulent, criminal activity, and that the U.S. government bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there’s no indication that the banks aren’t going to do something like the exact same thing all over again. You are free to disagree. But this is a movie that uses both cinema art and irrefutable facts to make its case. It’s strong stuff. Now streaming on: [Powered by ![JustWatch](https://widget.justwatch.com/assets/JW_logo_black_10px.svg)](https://www.justwatch.com/) ![](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Glenn-Kenny.jpg) ##### [Glenn Kenny](https://www.rogerebert.com/contributors/glenn-kenny) Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire [here](http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/meet-the-writers-glenn-kenny). #### The Big Short [Drama](https://www.rogerebert.com/genre/drama) ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars.svg) 130 minutes ‧ R ‧ 2015 ![](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-Big-Short-jpg.webp) #### Cast - [Rafe Spall](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/rafe-spall) as Danny Moses - [Finn Wittrock](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/finn-wittrock) as Jamie Shipley - [Christian Bale](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/christian-bale) as Michael Burry - [Steve Carell](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/steve-carell) as Mark Baum - [Al Sapienza](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/al-sapienza) as Dan Detone - [Brad Pitt](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/brad-pitt) as Ben Rickert - [Tracy Letts](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/tracy-letts) as Lawrence Fields - [John Magaro](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/john-magaro) as Charlie Geller - [Karen Gillan](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/karen-gillan) as Evie - [Byron Mann](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/byron-mann) as Mr. Chau - [Jeremy Strong](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/jeremy-strong) as Vinny Daniel - [Ryan Gosling](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ryan-gosling) as Jared Vennett - [Melissa Leo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/melissa-leo) as Georgia Hale - [Marisa Tomei](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/marisa-tomei) as Cynthia Baum - [Hamish Linklater](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/hamish-linklater) as Porter Collins - #### Director - [Adam McKay](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/adam-mckay) - #### Screenplay - [Adam McKay](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/adam-mckay) - [Charles Randolph](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/charles-randolph) - #### Director of Photography - [Barry Ackroyd](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/barry-ackroyd) - #### Editor - [Brent White](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/brent-white) - #### Novel - [Michael Lewis](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/michael-lewis) - #### Composer - [Nicholas Britell](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/nicholas-britell) #### Leave a comment Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.](https://disqus.com/?ref_noscript) * #### Now playing [![Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/MV5BMTFjNTM3NjgtMzI3NC00YTA1LTk4MjQtYWI2M2VhNDZmYTIwXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_-256x379.jpg) Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair Cristina Escobar ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars-fill.svg) 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Readable Markdown	The pre-release buzz is true: This is not your father’s financial crisis movie. Nor, for that matter, is it “[The Wolf of Wall Street](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-wolf-of-wall-street-2013).” The money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories are interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient amount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced sense of smell. The closest to a “[Wolf](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wolf-1994)”-like character here is [Ryan Gosling](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ryan-gosling)’s Jared Vennett, the most standard-issue suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch, and part of his schtick is to stand in a conference room sniffing ostentatiously because, yes, he smells money. The money smelt, and earned, by the adventurers of this story of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is arguably tainted by bad karma. Based on a book by [Michael Lewis](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/michael-lewis), “The Big Short” is about how several traders and hedge fund managers made fortunes because they saw that the housing market’s decline would cause a collapse of bonds contrived from sub-prime mortgages. The terminology is both dry and dizzying, the machinations incredibly convoluted. The main thesis of the story, adapted for the screen by director [Adam McKay](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/adam-mckay) and his co-screenwriter [Charles Randolph](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/charles-randolph), is that as banking became the top industry of the United States, bankers deliberately concocted Byzantine financial tools whose main function was to help the rich get richer and screw over the little guy. You can expect a lot of pushback against this film of the “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off criticizing income inequality” but that won’t mean the movie is wrong. And it really is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, but also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.” The film intertwines three discrete storylines. The first focuses on [Christian Bale](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/christian-bale)’s Michael Burry, a trained physician with very stunted social skills whose genius at analysis and numbers-crunching found him running a very successful West Coast hedge fund. After finding some terrifying data within the structures of a large number of mortgage bonds, he concocts a radical idea: to “short,” that is, bet against, the housing bond market, which the banks have puffed up as being unassailable. To do this he has to convince those banks to create a new financial tool, a kind of bond insurance policy. If Burry’s right and the market collapses, he and his hedge fund make stupid money. But for as long as the market stays stable, Burry and his fund are obliged to pay stupid money in premiums. [McKay](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/mckay) is best known as the director of such comedic fare as “Anchorman,” and, for all the silly self-reflexive humor in those films, there’s a sly underlying intelligence animating them, and here that takes the form of celebrity cameos wherein attractive people such as [Margot Robbie](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/margot-robbie) and Selena Gomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of terms such as “sub-prime.” He also enlists “Anchorman” rep company member Steve Carell for one main role, as financial Prophet of Doom Mark Baum, whose own fund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of the action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s self-torturing character is likely the closest thing this movie has to a directorial surrogate. [Finn Wittrock](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/finn-wittrock) and [John Magaro](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/john-magaro) play a couple of Jim Henson’s Hedge Fund Babies, mentored by [Brad Pitt](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/brad-pitt)’s Ben Rickert. Rickert’s character can be read as something of a slight sendup of Pitt’s own current do-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who left the game out of disgust, and who preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two young acolytes even as he helps them get pretty much super-rich. I started off feeling skeptical about this movie: the hairstyles and clothes of the main characters were more ‘90s music-video than early 2000s, and the sometimes-color-desaturated flashbacks to some characters’ back stories were a little on the drearily commonplace side. But the narrative momentum, combined with the profane wit of much of the dialogue, and the committed acting going on beneath the hairpieces, all did their job. And they got across the angry, pessimistic conviction behind the movie, which is that the major banks all engaged in fraudulent, criminal activity, and that the U.S. government bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there’s no indication that the banks aren’t going to do something like the exact same thing all over again. You are free to disagree. But this is a movie that uses both cinema art and irrefutable facts to make its case. It’s strong stuff.
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