From the director of comedy blockbusters like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy and Step Brothers, The Big Short is one of the most unique moviegoing experiences of the year.

Based off the book of the same name by Michael Lewis, who also wrote Moneyball and The Blind Side, The Big Short is both scathingly funny and a wide eye-opening experience. Featuring an A-list cast, The Big Short tells the story of four outsiders who foresaw the housing crisis and credit bubble in the mid-2000s and decide to bet against the banks. 

One thing that The Big Short does very well is explain the complex finance world and the people that inhabit it. It’s impossible to understand everything, and I think that’s the point, but Adam McKay and the writers pace the film at a breakneck pace while also slowing things down to make sure the audience understands key concepts. It is a hard juggling act for a director and the writers, but they mostly pull it off.

Even though the film features four of the finest actors working right now, the real star of the film is director McKay. Before this movie, McKay was known for his goofball comedies with Will Ferrell, but The Big Short showcases his talent of storytelling, world-building and his ability to make people laugh at terrible things. There are terrible people doing terrible things in this movie, and McKay does not hold back on showing the audience what they did while splicing in his trademark humor.   

McKay is certainly the big takeaway from this film, but there are also plenty of fine performances happening here as well. Christian Bale and Steve Carrell are the standouts as they both give award nomination worthy performances because of their ability to bounce between dramatic and comedic elements almost flawlessly. The whole cast had to do this, and the fact that it works so well is a testament to all of their performances.

While mostly a very entertaining moviegoing experience, The Big Short did start to wear me out towards the end. After a couple hours of trying to understand the complexity of the financial world and all of the shenanigans McKay was throwing at me, I started to feel worn out. It’s not really the film’s fault because this is how the financial industry is, but I felt that a film like Wolf of Wall Street handled it slightly better with more consistency.

That is just a minor nitpick on what is a mostly entertaining, hilarious and somewhat scary moviegoing experience. Not a lot of films are able to do that these days, which makes it for one of the most unique experiences I’ve had at a theatre this year. 

GRADE: B+