The screenplay of “The Big Short,' written by Adam McKay and Charles Randolph, is based on the book by Michael Lewis, is excellent.

Audiences are taken behind the scenes to the year 2005, before the housing bubble burst, before the housing market in the U.S. collapsed followed by banks, Wall Street, and banks around the world that had invested in our country's housing market. People had been making big, obscenely big money without concern about what would happen if things took a dive.

This film takes us on the journey and is extremely well done.

The acting is superb.

The characters who are the focus of the film were not responsible for the collapse, but they made big profits from it.

The first is Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale). A highly intelligent hedge fund manager of his own company Scion LLC and former neurologist. In the film Burry is the first person to discover what is going on through research. He was also the first to begin betting against the sub-prime loans – with over $1 billion of his investors' money! He walked away with $100 million and $700 million for his investors – when the collapse finally happened.

Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt play fictional characters in the film as Mark Baum, Jared Vennett, and Ben Rickert, who are based on real people who saw what was happening.

Carrell is dynamite as the hedge fund manager of his own company who, when afforded an opportunity to invest in some shorts does – but not before sending some of his employees to do a little research. Carrell's Mark Baum, despite his connection to Wall Street comes off as being rather left of center, nothing good to say about banks, like he's worried about the little guys … some inner conflict. But, he sticks it to the banks thanks to the proposal made by Gosling's banker character. The two, according to the movie become connected when Vennett dials a wrong number – Baum's.

Gosling's character is a smooth, cool, banker who has his very own lap dog, I mean assistant who follows him everywhere. When Venett meets with Baum and his three employees to explain what is happening and what he is proposing he does it using Jenga – and we all know how structurally sound Jenga buildings are ...

Pitt portrays a former trader who left Wall Street because he thought the system, and the world, were about to go down. He has retreated to rural country, grows his own vegetables, his a complete health freak. He becomes involved after being contacted by two young and green Colorado investors who grew $100,000 into $30 million who stumble into the “action.”

The film is lightened up a bit by using celebrities to explain some of the Wall Street speak/banking terminology in layman's terms.

First up is Margot Robbie (“Wolf on Wall Street”). A beautiful blonde in a bubble bath who, between sips of champagne, explains mortgage backed securities.

She explains that banks started making risky loans (sub prime mortgages), and a lot of them.

When home owners defaulted on the loans (these are called shorts), the players in this tale of good old captialistic greed began to bet against the shorts.

Chef Anthony Bourdain takes on CDBs (collateralized debt obligations) comparing what's hidden inside a CDB (a lot of risky loans) them to a seafood stew made of yesterday's fish. It's not bad, it's something new.

And, characters in the film “break the fourth wall” (speak into the camera to the audience) to clarify a point or correct what is being said or portrayed in a scene. These moments are great fun.

Photographic images are woven into the story — of real people living life while all the wheeling and dealing was being done. As the mortgages are defaulted on, hedge funds are obliterated and banks begin closing; those images capture homeowners with belongings outside of their former homes, former homeowners living in their cars, in tent cities …

These images, the fourth wall and celebrity bits are woven into a film that tackles a serious story we all need to know as much as possible about … so history doesn't repeat itself … because it never does, right?

“The Big Short” is playing at The Harbor Theatre Friday, Feb. 12 and Saturday, Feb. 13 and Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 14 at 2 p.m.