Cinema Night - 'The Big Short'

When: Meet in the bar area of Arts Picturehouse at 8.15pm, film starts at 9pm

Director: Adam McKay. 
Starring: Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell. 

Sitting neatly between the claustrophobic boiler-room drama of Margin Call and The Wolf Of Wall Street’s Grand Guignol theatrics, this latest entry into the financial-disaster subgenre boasts an all-star cast. Narrated by potty-mouthed banker Jared Vennett (Gosling), the film follows various unsavoury high rollers betting against the inevitable crash of 2008 – and actually winning. 

Vennett dives into the credit-default-swop swamp, along with the self-loathing Mark Baum (Carell, in fine form), the apparently deranged Michael Burry (Christian Bale) and, a little later, a disheveled Brad Pitt as a discredited banker gone rogue. 

Most of us now have a handle on what caused the global economic collapse and even on some of its tortured jargon, but writer-director Adam McKay (Anchorman) has crafted a nifty comedy drama that even the fiscally illiterate will find both hilarious and suspenseful.