“The Brain of the century”: Brad Pitt, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling as ever – Le Point

His name is little known in France, but the writer Michael Lewis is a star in the United States where his books regularly rank at the top of the best sellers. Specializing in decoding strategies, including financial, it is also becoming one of the favorite authors of Hollywood. The last two films adapted from his best-stellers, Moneyball (on the creation of the statistical system called “sabermetric” in baseball) and The Blind Side (on the evolution of football thanks to Michael Other player) have won several Oscar nominations and for the second, offered to Sandra Bullock a consecration to the title of best actress.

On 23 December, another of his books will be brought to the screen: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine ( Le Casse-century in VF). It looks at the individuals who had anticipated the subprime crisis and “the general collapse” that it would cause in the financial markets. Atypical personalities such as Dr. Michael Burry, a former neurologist, Greg Lippman, a trader at Deutsche Bank, Steve Eisman, a hedge fund manager, or Ben Hockett, a founder of Cornwall Capital hedge fund. Convinced of the coming cataclysm, they bet against the market and profited from the financial crisis.

Oscars and presidential

Le Casse-century especially expected that offers a cast of first choice by bringing Brad Pitt (Hockett), Christian Bale (Burry), Ryan Gosling (Lippman) and Steve Carrell (Eisman), all unrecognizable, and cultivates, according judge the trailer, a humorous fiber capable of mitigating the aridity of about. A tone that is reminiscent, in these first images, The Wolf of Wall Street Martin Scorsese. Except that the heroes of this incredible but true scenario show a different look less attractive than Leonardo DiCaprio.

With this release in the very end of the film, which is directed by Adam McKay ( Anchorman ), is firmly in the Oscar race, but also in that of the US presidential election in 2016. “I noticed that in current political debates, hardly anyone speaks banking reform. It’s pretty amazing when you realize how close we were an absolute disaster in 2008, “explains the director. “I hope that one way or another, this film may have a slight influence on the discussions. We need it.”