Man on the Run

Greetings again from the darkness. Remember that time you paid pop star Brittany Spears one million dollars to jump out of a birthday cake at your party? Or the times you paid huge appearance fees to celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, and Paris Hilton to hang around your lavish parties? If not, then you're no Jho Low. And thank goodness for that. Jho Low was in cahoots with then Prime Minister Najib Razak to siphon billions from a fund designed to assist Malaysian citizens. Their fund was called 1MDB (1 Malaysian Development Berhad) and thanks to researchers and whistleblowers, this film from Cassius Michael Kim lays out a textbook case of corruption, fraud, and greed.

The FBI have called this the largest kleptocracy case to date. Kleptocracy is defined as corrupt government officials embezzling funds for personal gain. And yes, that is the where the billions of dollars come in, however, in this day and age, celebrities must be involved for the general public to much care. To satisfy these viewers, the montage of associated celebrities is impressive, and the use of these funds to finance Martin Scorsese's Oscar nominated film, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2014), may provide the perfect example of irony. Government corruption funding a film highlighting Wall Street corruption. To top it off, that scenario is then used as the basis for a documentary focused on the two key players behind this conspiracy of fraudulent activity.

In addition to Jho Low, Prime Minister Najib Razak, and the celebs, the story also involves Najib's wife, the FBI, Goldman Sachs executives, and numerous other folks who got caught up in the web of greed. Wherever there is dirty money being spent, you can be assured there are dirty people involved. Filmmaker Kim allows many to communicate their perspectives and observations on Jho Low, though the reality is that he remains a somewhat mysterious figure. An enigma who, while conspiring with the head of a country, managed to live the high life by spending money bilked from Malaysians.

A 22-carat diamond ended up with the Prime Minister's wife, and both of them got what they deserved in the end. However, the newest game of "Where's Waldo?" is now called, "Where's Jho Low?" He is the titular man on run, while others pay the price ... including a country that teetered on financial failure. The director does include an interview with the former Prime Minister, and we do hear from others who are familiar with the case. Unfortunately, none of the celebrities who accepted the fees agreed to appear on camera, either due to shame or fear of self-incrimination. Still, there is plenty of slime on display.

In select theaters beginning September 22, 2023.

Love the narrative and how it ties back to how this affects the everyday lay people from hawkers to illiterate rural Malaysians. The 1MDB fiasco seemed hidden behind clouds of financial jargons and conspiracy when the news first broke but the documentary did an amazing job explaining how this came to be and why nobody knew all the details behind it. Perfect for people who have no extensive knowledge about business/finance workouts as this documentary breaks difficult concepts and illustrated them into very digestible pieces. Highly recommended for all Malaysians to build understanding of this turbulent times.

The trailer seemed interesting. That this would be an exciting documentary about a "Man on the Run" (aka Jho Low), who stole a billion dollars and used it to fund an extravagant lifestyle full of parties with rich people and celebrities. Only problem is, it isn't that at all. The trailer is basically just scenes taken from the first 5 minutes and then for the rest of the documentary, Jho Low is only talked about sporadically as a connection point for a number of other shady characters.

You know when a teacher would give you a minimum word count but you were 200 words short at the end of an essay so you would add fluff in there to make it longer even though it added no value? Well that's what this felt like. The documentary could have been about 60 minutes instead of 98 minutes and it would have been substantially better. The creators would drag out their creepy artwork(?) shots for 30 seconds instead of moving on to the next scene.

In the end it's not a documentary I would recommend to anyone, which is sad because it's an interesting topic.

To one of the biggest financial scandals of recent times. It does a good job of introducing the players, and explaining what happened. I have two observations. The first is that the audacity that some people have, you are caught red handled stealing money from the country you were elected to lead and you blame other people? Shameless. The other observation that I have is about the practice of paying celebrities to attend your parties. So basically if you have enough money you can pay pretty much whoever you want to show up, it doesn't matter what shady or immoral things you might be up to. It's a bizarre world.

This shows a really high profile scam which went unseen with a lot of big figures spanning across countries and industries. The movie is informative but is not in best form of entertainment or even a good documentary. Could be taken better for cinematic effects or experience but would recommend everyone to watch the movie for sake of learning about one of the biggest scandals in recent times. When the key politicians and big name firms get inloved, everything from investigations to serving justice could be a challenge but requires the justice to renew the faith in the democratic systems. Watch for information.