The Wizard of Lies

Richard Dreyfuss claims first portrayal of this monster, but he made Bernard out to be somewhat approachable, as he talked through the fourth wall and joked about the art of selling a scam. He was good but too likable. DeNiro is one of our great acting treasures and his take is nothing nice at all. In fact, it is impossible to like this man. He is evil here, and while one can have some sympathy for Ruth and her sons, the entire tragedy, almost out of Shakespeare, is well done. It bounces around a bit to the past and present, but easy to follow and under the direction of Barry Levinson, moves smartly. But don't watch this if you want a positive evening - hard film indeed. Shot of whiskey portrayal of a monster.

The Wizard of Lies chronicles the infamous Wall Street meltdown that was Madoff's Billion Dollar Ponzi scheme in Barry Levinson's woefully flawed but still engaging film. Starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pffeifer, The Wizard of Lies features a strong cast of seasoned actors that give their best on screen. De Niro particularly is very strong here and gives his best performance in close to a decade. However, the film suffers from a broken and jumbled script that leaves for a somewhat confusing watch.

The film begins with an interview between Madoff and the subsequent author of his unofficial biography. He begins telling the story at the end of the meltdown on the eve of his arrest and starts from there. From here on out, we're told the story in chunks and pieces, from one perspective to another and totally abandons all formality regarding coherent storytelling. Instead, Levinson creates a deeply personal character study that paints Madoff as a sociopath and a white collar criminal mastermind who would rather blame the victim than himself. While it is engrossing to see De Niro as Madoff, it is barely enough to sustain its bloated runtime.

The film is engrossing to watch. There's no denying it but as the minutes ticked by, it all started to feel redundant. It was more so just dragging the entire Madoff family through hell for the remaining hour of the film and it becomes exhausting after awhile. In a way it was very much a Greek tragedy of epic proportions that just didn't seem to end and by the time it decided it wanted to, you were already checked out 10 minutes prior. Despite this, the ending is satisfying for those wanting to see karma at its best or a tragedy at its worst, whatever way you want to look at it.

Overall, The Wizard of Lies is a missed opportunity more so than not. While it is great to see De Niro and Pfeiffer in top forms, it would have been nice to get a more coherent script from a story that literally writes itself. While anyone expecting a film in the vein of The Big Short will be let down by this, The Wizard of Lies benefits from being a deep character study that shines a (small) light of one of the most tragic mysteries of the 2008 financial crisis.

After reading a couple of negative reviews about this movie, I get the impression that the people who found it insufficient or boring completely lost the point. Levinson didn't try to pull a "Fincher" with this one. In other words, "Wizard of Lies" is not a documentary, touching on each and every aspect of this infamous case in every detail. This is more of a psychogram (i.e. character portrayal) of the members of the Madoff family. With that in mind, the movie touches wonderfully on the dynamics of an ultimately patriarchal family; the "castration" of the sons, the absolute dependence of every member of the family on the father, and on what happens when this father goes down in a big, BIG way. If you are interested in learning about the greatest financial fraud in the history of the USA (some say of all time), then visit the Wikipedia page or watch a documentary. This movie will not cover your needs. If you want to watch a beautifully directed, acted and edited psychological drama, then "The Wizard of Lies" is right up your alley.

I wanted more, more of how Bernie Madoff became the man we meet in this film. When we meet him he is already rotten. He is mere months away from his arrest.

There is in Robert DeNiro's portrayal little or nothing to like or empathize with. Or care about. What we have is a true sociopath who is found out early in the film, which forces us to see nothing but the devastation left in his wake.

This is my way of saying there is no story arc. There are no surprises. What flashbacks there are show Madoff in his personal life but always at his worst.

Michelle Pheiffer as Madoff's wife has a small rand unconvincing role. And like her husband, I couldn't care less about her fate. As for the Madoff sons, to some degree this is more their story than anyone else's. And to the degree that I learned quite a bit about them, the film deserves credit.

But that is not enough to warrant its viewing.

I was somewhat surprised by this biopic, since I'm well-acquainted with the modern Ponzi scheme story and the $65 Billion ripoff committed at the private investment firm. But even for those familiar with the general story, the documentary film provides a fascinating portrait of the Madoff family and the key characters. Overall it reminds me of an epic Greek tragedy.

The principal crime committed by Bernie Madoff is clearcut. Officially, Madoff run a phenomenal hedge fund, but in reality it was just one big hoax and pyramid investment scheme. All ROIs were fictitious and existing investors were paid by the money provided by subsequent investors. Aside from defrauding rich individuals of European royalty, Madoff took advantage of the fact that he as a jewish investor had excellent contacts to other wealthy American jews, which allowed him to swindle countless of the latter of all their retirement savings. All in all, in the end it led to countless tragedies and suicides on both continents.

The financial thriller behind it has been well-told by previous accounts, particularly 'No One Would Listen' by Harry Markopolos (i.e. the financial analyst struggled to expose the fraud for many years). It's also true that the ramifications would have been much more limited if the SEC would have done their job properly.

However, what this biopic does is following Bernie Madoff and the effects of the exposure on his own family, i.e. particularly his wife Ruth and his two adult sons. It seems as his family was completely unaware of the fraud and the movie does a good job in explaining how his sons never got the information from their dominating father. Later, when it all blew up the fraud also wreaked havoc on the lives of his wife and sons.

In the end, it was all for nothing. The family members would lived longer and happier lives without massive fraud committed by the Bernard. While the portrait of him is by no means completely unsympathetic, he remains seemingly oblivious even to this day to the devastation he caused in so many lives, including to those nearest to him.

The main roles played by Robert de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer are brilliant, but also the less-known actors playing his two sons.