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.

The basic story was ripe for an excellent documentary. It was about how a small group of people tried warning others about Madoff. They failed, but not for lack of trying, and good for them for trying.

However, the documentary itself is far too dramatic. After awhile it was tiring to hear the small group tout itself as being extraordinarily brave. The main guy who stuck with it ended up looking as disturbed as Madoff--living in a paranoid fantasy world where his family was in constant danger.

It runs about an hour and a half. It would have been a very good 50-minute documentary. But it drags on and on, often not getting anywhere.

Too bad. It had a real story to tell.

Also missing is any investigative reporting, after the fact, about why the people who were alerted (looking at you SEC, Wall Street Journal) didn't act? We still don't know why from this documentary.

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.

Read the other reviews. There, you will find two schools of thought; those who rate this documentary ***very*** highly and those who rate is ***very*** poorly. What's going on ? This is, I believe, a microcosm of the United States today where simplistic ideology rules Washington. On one hand, you will find those who argue that more regulation is needed and, on the other hand, those who argue that less regulation is the cure because the bureaucrats in Washington are unable to regulate competently. The facts are that if your local firemen are incompetent, the solution is NOT to eliminate fire-fighters, as some right-wingers argue, but to insure that they are competent. The solution is also NOT to increase the number of firemen, as some left-wingers argue. Essentially, this documentary argues not from the viewpoint of Bernie Madoff's evil, but from the viewpoint of the incompetence of Washington bureaucrats. THAT is the truth.

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.