Adam McKay, a zany screenwriter, interprets a highly analytical book and produces a slapstick film adaptation. It’s a nice trick but the end result is gimmicky, hodgepodge and funnier than it needed to be.

The Big Short, a conceptually formidable drama, turns into a weird comedy when Ryan Gosling’s character wipes out the fourth wall and admits to the audience that the previous scene never actually happened. And that’s just the beginning.

The celebrity cameos used to explain financial lingo are amusing interludes but misplaced. I was okay with the “Jenga” collapse analogy contained in the actual movie. These vignettes highlighted an inability to write the actual story into the story. This has many theater goers talking about Anthony Bourdain’s fish instead of Christian Bale’s excellent performance. Heretofore, McKay made assumptions about economic knowledge and interest of his audience which shorts, well, us.

I didn’t dislike the film. I joined in the laughter. The overly tanned and arrogant Gosling was hilarious but I didn’t expect humor to be the big takeaway from The Big Short. The film can only make a 3.1 out of 5 napkin down payment, making it unable to finance Film Clas elite status.

***The photo is of a drawing in the book “All the Buildings in New York That I’ve Drawn So Far” by James Gulliver Hancock published by Universe Publishing, a division of Rizzoli International Publishing, Inc. 300 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10010***