The Big Short is a great film, cinematically speaking. It’s fast-paced, smart, funny, and cool, at least within its own wonky context. As a commentary on the incident itself, it portrays itself as contrarian while being emphatically kosher. As Andy Nowicki noted in his recent review, this is a big budget mainstream film written, directed, and financed by Hollywood. Hell, the producer, ארנון מילצ’ן‎, is a Jewish billionaire with ties to the Israeli intelligence service and the international arms trade.

Needless to say, you’re not going to get the full story.

What you do get is most of the bottom half of the story (minus the minority lending hustle). It’s a familiar story about an irrational market bubble...