Chasing Madoff

I don't understand the low marks for this film. It's a lively, fascinating telling of the Madoff tale, or rather, the two Madoff tales -- one about what he did and how he got caught, the other about how the people he did it to tried to protect him.

It's refreshing to see everyday people working in finance, and even more impressive to see them exercising values like sacrifice, courage, and the rule of law. Maybe the film is 10 minutes too long, but that's a small price to pay for this story.

If you're looking for an action film, rent 'Let the Bullets Fly.' If you're looking for an entertaining overview of the largest financial fraud in history, and its relevance for the rest of us, this is your documentary.

This documentary explores very interesting aspects of what went on behind the curtains while the massive Bernie Madoff's scheme developed, expanded and ultimately collapsed.

However, the documentary wastes the potential by using a very weak and wacky personal storyline anchor, which becomes repetitive and ultimately annoying after one of the main subjects starts putting out his paranoia for the n-th time.

The end result is a clumsy piece that bumps from a few high moment between a repetitive cycle of self-pity, delusion and confused thoughts of a man that slide into it after not seeing any results from his push to expose a major fraud in the making.

I've watched the De Niro and Dreyfuss movies a couple of times each and like them. As entertainment, Dreyfuss is better, but both are well made films, well directed, well acted. They hit the right notes for movie buffs.

But both of those movies miss the point. The point isn't that Bernie Madoff was a swindler. That's a boring story. Madoff started out selling penny stocks and in the end he was never much more than a penny-stock putz. Sure he may have been chairman of NASDAQ at one point, but if you're under the impression that putzes aren't running the world, well, God bless you.

No the permanently interesting story of the Madoff scandal is the same as the story of the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos scandal: how they got away with it, how the people who should have known better, didn't, in fact, the folks who should have known better actively enabled the fraudsters. This movie gets that part of the story right: It's a story about the SEC. It should be clear now that the people in Washington and elsewhere who are supposed to be protecting the American people, aren't. They aren't even trying hard. And when they fail, OTHER PEOPLE's lives are destroyed but they keep getting promoted, or they move to even better-paying jobs outside government.

Warning: Watch this film after watching The Big Short and you may be inclined to cash in your retirement funds and put the money into something safe and solid like Bitcoin. (Just kidding.)

I'm not a cynic. This is just how it is, and this movie certainly demonstrates that.

Now about the other aspects of this movie: It should have been a one-hour show. Too much about Markopolos' anxieties about the danger he might be in. I'm willing to say that he was not being unreasonable. But in retrospect, he was NOT killed or assaulted, and that part of the story -- the personal and emotional effect of being a Cassandra -- is real, but can't be appreciated by any of us.

Markopolos is right: He's NOT a hero. He was a Cassandra. And Cassandra wasn't a hero. She was a prophet that no one listened to.

There have been many documentary shows about Madoff. It's a fascinating and horrifying story. But this example resembles a low budget episode of a "crooks and grifters" TV reality show. Obviously, video of Madoffs early career is rare. But the producers fill the void with stock shots, clips from old time movies and inserts that are clearly meant to provide something to watch as the narrator drones on. And to keep things interesting they rely on every cinematic bromide that their computer can manage: inserts with the edges out of focus, sepia toned clips to simulate "vintage" material and flicker-frame montages that repeat the same pointless visuals over and over and over. Its a 40 minute TV show inflated to feature length. Frontline, BBC and others have covered this material better. And the video is well laced with sobbing investors, folks rich enough to interest Madoff with their millions, yet foolish and careless enough to have blindly put all their nest eggs in the same basket. They claim over and over that they have "lost everything" when it is well known that the investors did get a substantial portion of their money back. The Frontline Madoff Affair is a much better watch.

I am obsessed with the Madoff story. Great hearing it from the story of the whistleblower.

My only problem with it is that the writer and protagonist of the story, Markopolos, persistently invents a threat to his life for which others saw no basis, and he constantly paints himself as a non-hero while describing his Herculean efforts.

It is definitely the best indictment of the SEC and shows Markopolis' incredible tenacity, and is a great watch. But the writer can't be the hero off the story and call himself a no -hero. Just let someone else write the script.

I admire Markopols greatly and can't imagine how frustrated he must have been. If there really was some threat to his life, it should have been demonstrated in some way. It just takes away from the story of the Madoff and his victims.