“I look for value where it can be found,” declares Baum, a walking argument of a man, itchy for a fight. If anyone is the auteur here it is Lewis, for beneath the colourful characterisation runs the same moral point that energised “Moneyball” - that a system so hollowed out by meretricious success could only be called out by a bunch of runty, cantankerous outsiders. I loved the victory punch that Geller gives on his sofa when they get Rickert on board: there has been no sadder celebration in movies since Jonah Hill clenched his hammy little fist in “Moneyball”, also adapted from a Michael Lewis book. The presence of Bale, essentially inverting his role as the Armani-clad Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho”, should alert you to the full array of bad hair, supermarket clothes and clenched body language on display here. These are not your typical masters of the universe. When thwarted in their efforts to go public with the story to the Wall Street Journal, they bring in Brad Pitt, wearing a thick beard, as the retired trader Ben Rickert – a disenchanted guru, now living off the land, who gets them a seat at the big boys’ table. Their response: sure we’ll take your money, kid.Ĭatching wind of the scheme is Mark Baum (Steve Carell), an angry rogue trader at Morgan Stanley who holds the big banks, his own included, in righteous contempt, plus two indie greenhorns, Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) and Charlie Geller (John Magaro), working out of their garage. “Greenspan’s wrong,” he announces calmly.

A fund manager who sits in his office wearing a T-shirt and flip-flops, blasting thrash metal, Burry has taken a close look at the subprime mortgage market and decided to bet against the system.

Nothing in the film rings quite as wickedly true as the laughter from the bankers at Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley when Michael Burry (Christian Bale) proposes his scheme.

The big short showing