The Laundromat

If you are like me absolutely not interested in financial companies, rich people and their dodgy ways of making money, but you still want to know about the Panama Papers scandal than The Laundromat is worth a watch. They try to explain it in a funny way, but even then I'm still not getting all the scams. And that's just because I'm an antisocial person that wants to live as far away as possible from people like that. The movie is worth a watch because of the very good cast. Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep for the bigger roles, Matthias Schoenaerts, Sharon Stone, David Schwimmer and others for the smaller parts. It's well filmed and brought, and even if it's very far away from my way of life, and that I still don't understand half of the possible scams, it's entertaining. The world needs more whistle blowers, but what it needs more are competent judges putting all those leaches in prison for a long time, but that's just utopic as the world isn't fair and never will be.

This movie is about a very boring subject. This also happens to be a rather complicated subject. What this film does with the subject however makes the movie entertaining from the first to last minute.

A political comedy about corruption that should be mandatory to be shown in schools and I do not only mean film schools, I mean all schools..Everyone paying taxes should see it.

Yes, it shows some aspects of what is going on in the financial world and yes, it is not covering the whole system of abuse. Great acting on behalf of Meryl Streep which of course is not surprising. I was missing the role of central banks in this strange but true world order and of course the new role of crypto currencies that have become a new outlet for tax evasion and miscellaneous corruption.

Probably one of the reason it is still flourishing.

It is probably impossible to cover all aspects in one film.

I am truly surprised about the low rating it has gotten from users.

My only explanation is that it does not follow the centuries old blueprint of the heroes journey moving along a standard three act structure, which I consider daring and a plus. Especially if it manages to advance the art of film making, which this film does.

Directorial gimmicks of intertwining realms in one take usually used in the world of expensive and glossy corporate videos make this film a gem.

Yes, the message comes across loud and clear about the dilemma of fraudulent insurance scams, tax evasions and shell companies, but the storytelling is haphazard, disjointed and feeble at best. The stellar cast cannot save what the writing is messing up, this is a missed opportunity of telling (what could have been) a much better story about a dark element of today American corporate life (which Mr. Trump clearly play a role in as well...).

A nice little movie in the tradition of Adam McKay's Vice and The Big Short. This mixed with the unique style of Steven Soderbergh results in a quirky and entertaining movie about a rather boring topic. Its informative, funny, a bit sad at times and always extremely well acted. The most outstanding performance came from Meryl Streep who really surprises ( I am not saying too much here) and really links her unique humour with many deep moments. A really great performance, but who would have expected differently? Gary Oldman was also great. One of his funniest performances ever, never thought he had it in, Obviously Oldman had a lot of fun playing this role and it showed. Same goes to Antonio Banderas who also shines as Oldman's partner. Them breaking the fourth wall was sometimes a bit irritating but you got used to it very quickly. Another noteworthy performance was by Nonso Anzonie who was fantastic. Wished there had been more of Sharon Stone , I really enjoyed her cameo and character. Also Jeffrey Wright, almost unrecognizable, had some really memorable moments. The screenplay was really very well written and I really liked Steven Soderbergh's direction on this. He really managed to make such a dry topic entertaining. The only thing I really did not like too much was the very ending of it. Other than that it is a very good film and one of this years Netflix best.