Con Man - Aufstieg und Fall des Barry Minkow

The movie about con-gangster Minkow, often mentions how charismatic he was and had to be to be succesful. But seeing him playing himself in the second half of the movie (a very strange effect imo), made me question this. He doesn´t come over as charismatic.. or anything special. On the other hand he seems to have talked quite some known names from Hollywood to be in this flick.. so maybe it is true after all.. or he just paid them well (what i think is the reason for his "success" anyway.. greed.

This film subject is a great film to explore but the film fails on many levels! One thing is the fact the fact the real life subject plays himself. (Never a good idea). Also the film also is "Too Bright". The colors or over saturated. The is a crime story. Also the screenplay doesn't cover what happened to many of the people that helped Barry create his con.

In case you don't know the story Con Man is the real life story of Barry Jay Minkow, a son, businessman, fraud buster, actor, pastor... and felon. Born in 1967, Barry Minkow went on to set up a highly successful carpet cleaning company but was imprisoned in 1988 for one of the world's largest investment and accounting frauds through a Ponzi scheme..

This case is so interesting that I am positive another film will get made. I am sure it will be better than this attempt.

I found this quite watchable and interesting but my major criticism is in the casting of an actor in his 30's playing the role of a 16 year old! Some well known faces to spot but several were under utilised. I could well imagine Tom Hanks playing the role of Barry Minkow. It did feel like there were huge chunks of the story missing or glossed over but anyone that says it's 'the worst movie they've ever seen' can only have watched a limited amount. I've watched tons and my rating of 5 out of 10 indicates it as one i watched all the way through, but could've been a lot better.

I also don't understand how my review can be too short when i've just read one that has way less sentences!

And they never finished describing what a complete scum bag this guy still is. What gets me is that many of his church friends are either in denial of him being the devil or just naive sheep at the slaughter.

There's no way this film cost $25m I think Barry put in some bogus receipts.