[yasr_overall_rating]
A chronicle of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, which defrauded his clients of billions of dollars.
Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro) masterminded the greatest Ponzi scheme in history – if you can even call it “masterminded.” In reality, he was both incredibly intuitive about greed and the culture of the wealthy, while also being equally delusional that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Even worse, he suggested that his investors were accessories to his scheme by never really looking much further than their own greed and what they hoped he could do for them. In a way, he implies that they deserved it. And in a way, he’s kind of right. The system is incredibly rigged. It’s all a numbers game and as long as you maintain the illusion of wealth, whether or not you actually use it before you die in a nursing home, that’s what they really want:
They want their status and their reputation. And they want a fall guy if it goes down badly.
Bernie Madoff was the epitome of both this pretentious wealthy person who sends a lobster back if it’s not prepared right and also the trustworthy fall guy who claims that he never meant to hurt anybody, that he always thought he could eventually right the wrongs.
And behind every trustworthy criminal is a beautiful blonde who never questions the wealth of her husband any more than his clients do. Ruth Madoff (Michelle Pfeiffer) is classy, but stereotypically blind, naive, trusting, and severely content with her very comfortable life. She’s loyal to the end, even when she knows the extent of the deceit. She can’t abandon her husband of more than 50 years, especially in the face of being alone with herself and a life where her marriage was her all-in investment.
Sadly, as the scheme builds to disproportionate heights and becomes more entangled with his family and his friends, Bernie struggles to protect them. But the only way he can protect them while still maintaining his front is to gaslight, yell, insult, shame, and push them away whenever anyone asks a normal question about his health or the future of the business. Ultimately, the crash of 2008 unraveled his scheme and the rest is history.
But the film itself is morbidly fascinating. Weaving historical television footage with documentary-style dramatization, the haunting plucking of guitar strings, the emotional destruction of a family and a man who simply gave up because he got tired of holding it together, letting the house of cards fall, it will be hard to stop watching even when you already know how it ends. The worse part is what happens to his family even as he is comfortably sent to maximum security, white collar prison for his awaited retirement.
It’s brutal. Hell hath no fury like a wealth lover frauded.
Now available on Blu-ray & DVD
