Anchorman director Adam McKay aims for his own Doctor Strangelove black comedy classic with the outraged and outrageous The Big Short. Based on Michael Lewis' book of the same name, The Big Short chronicles the true story of how four businessmen foresaw (and profited from) the late 2000s housing crisis and financial meltdown by essentially betting on America to fail.

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Those four (mostly unconnected) observers include: Michael Burry (Christian Bale), a socially awkward, speed metal-loving speculator with a glass eye who nevertheless can see the looming housing bubble burst coming months ahead of time; slick cat banker Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling); money manager Mark Baum (Steve Carell), whose growing outrage over the corrupt system mirrors the audience's own anger; and newbies Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock) who get sage advice from a retired trader, Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt, who also produced), who has turned his back on the whole damn thing to lead a quiet life elsewhere.Each of them investigate and uncover all the elements that will eventually lead to the seemingly unstoppable housing market crashing in 2008 and almost taking the world economy with it. Each tries to warn those capable of possibly stopping it only to be rebuffed. McKay lays the blame at the doorstep of pretty much everyone here, from Wall Street to government agencies to the media and even the citizenry themselves.And lest we forget, our anti-heroes (some of whom are composite characters) are dismayed at the systemic corruption and utter failure of the system even as they ultimately reap massive profits by shorting the housing market. In a story this full of contempt and pervasive decay, these are the best we can hope for as our heroes.Bale makes his Doctor (he began as a neurosurgeon) Mike Burry the smartest of these very smart protagonists even if he's also the most oddball. If Bale's the brains then Carell's Mark Baum is the heart of this quartet, a workaholic whose crisis of conscience following a personal tragedy fuels his drive to do something here. Gosling is hilarious as the shark-like Vennett who spots blood in the water and moves in for the kill (he also uses Jenga to explain how the entire system can collapse in one of the film's many user-friendly explanation scenes).Gosling does most of the to-camera expository sequences, but he gets an assist from some celebrity cameos. Yes, Margot Robbie sips champagne in a bubble bath while explaining to the viewer how credit default swaps work. It's a brilliant and biting observation on what it takes to get through to people in this listicle-driven, short attention span day and age.The Big Short is crammed with information, distilling it all down in as digestible a form as possible while keeping a human face on it, but it does stay a bit too long at the party. Its long running time is keenly felt when the film loses momentum in the homestretch, which is unfortunate considering it's all been building up to the inevitable meltdown and its "I told you so" aftermath.Ultimately, this is Adam McKay's show and his bitter contempt for how the whole thing got so out of control informs every facet of this self-aware and often hilarious diatribe. It provokes the necessary outrage at the system and its failures and corruption.