Madoff

Richard Dreyfuss gives a terrific performance as investment con man Bernie Madoff. He's an interesting character, dishonest to the core yet loyal and generous to his friends, although it's unclear whether he was genuinely generous or just interesting in keeping people loyal.

It's fascinating to see the long con and how it unravels, and infuriating and disturbing to watch a lone crusader spend fruitless years trying to convince an inept SEC to investigate one of the great financial criminal.

The great weakness of the film is that it overly focuses on Madoff's family, including an ungraceful attempt to use his family history of cancer as a symbol.

I understand wanting to show how Madoff's actions hurt his family, and the actors are fine, particularly Blythe Danner (still, surprisingly, sexy in her 70s), but what Madoff did hurt so many more people than his family, and while that is shown, it is overshadowed by the rather dull family stuff.

I feel the movie should have focused more on the crusader, or on the incompetence of the SEC. Or it could have just been pared down in length.

Still, it's a fascinating story and Dreyfuss is a perfect Madoff.

Considering that they drag this out over nearly 3 full hours you would think you'd see it all. Not nearly enough is shown of how the Madoffs lived high on the hog for decades. And far too much time is spent leading up to the eventual crash and not enough is shown of the aftermath. If Madoff had only preyed upon the filthy rich he would have been far more forgivable, but he took down quite a few smaller folks in his fall from grace. To my way of thinking, Mark Madoff comes off as less redeemable than his father even though Mark supposedly had no knowledge of the ponzi scheme. What sort of son disowns his own father over a white collar crime?

The great irony in this tale is that ALL of Wall Street is one huge ponzi scheme. The eventual collapse will one day make Madoff a forgotten footnote. It's the age old truth folks - if an investment seems too good to be true, it is.

Overall an entertaining movie best viewed at double speed. It was nice to see Richard Dreyfus and Charles Grodin again.

"Madoff" is the story of sociopath Bernie Madoff, a story we all know too well. It's worth watching for the performances.

It stars Richard Dreyfuss as Madoff. He's terrific, and I imagine very much like the real man. The two-parter follows the story of the Ponzi scheme, the effect on Bernie's family, and Madoff's inner dialogue, done as a narration.

Other actors in this excellent cast include Blythe Danner, Tom Lipinski, Peter Scolari, Danny Deferrari, Frank Whaley, and Erin Cummings.

Though the first part is all over the place, with dizzying camera work and disjunctive scenes; the second part is much better.

The film does a great job of showing what happens when people -- like, for instance, the SEC -- turn a blind eye to something because they believe someone to be respectable. It took securities investigator Harry Markopolos 10 minutes to figure out that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, and six hours to figure out how he was doing it. But no one listened - and that's the title of his book.

It also demonstrates how Madoff saw himself as a victim, the "fall guy," finding it outrageous that he was being blamed.

Standout in the cast, besides Dreyfuss, is Peter Scolari as Peter Madoff - a brilliant, emotional performance; Tom Lipinski and Danny Deferrari as his sons, who found out the trading division they ran was just a front and turned him in; Blythe Danner as Ruth Madoff, who stood by him and tried to get her sons to sign a bond for his bail (they refused); and Michael Rispoli, who worked side by side with Bernie.

I saw "Enron: The Smartest Guy in the Room" and also a documentary about Madoff, and saw the SEC meeting where a Judge slammed the SEC, asking them "what the hell" they thought they were doing, ignoring countless letters of complaint about Madoff, and the fact that somehow they didn't know he wasn't a registered agent. Not that he needed to be one - the only investments he ever made were in his own bank account, to the tune of $50 billion.

For Bernie's investors, half of them as of this date have been completely repaid, with more money being returned all the time. Irving Picard has been diligent in going after Bernie's money - but mind you, he formed foundations and gave millions to charities, and those charities wound up having to return the money.

It's an awful story, but it's hard to have pity for Madoff. It's hard to feel sorry for his investors, because it was greed that brought them to him in the first place, the carrot of big money.

The ones to pity are the members of Madoff's family: his two sons, now both deceased, his son Andrew telling a newspaper that his father's disgrace "killed my brother (suicide) and it's killing me slowly (lmantle cell lymphoma)." The family has a genetic predisposition to cancer; leukemia killed his nephew Roger.

In one of the saddest moments of the film, Madoff presents his brother Peter (Scolari), Roger's father, with a new car shortly after Roger's death. Peter of course works in Madoff's firm and knows Bernie's methods aren't above board, but he doesn't know details. Peter gets into the car and sobs, "Roger, he's been paying me off for years, hasn't he?"

"Nobody wants the magic trick explained," Madoff tells his wife. And he was right. Nobody wants the magic trick explained as long as the checks are good and the money keeps rolling in.

For a movie about Madoff the main thing is the story has to be linear, non confusing and thorough and this 2 part miniseries succeeds. It introduces enough characters one by one to show the major players in the scandal, how the business duped clients and how it came crashing down. It isn't too complicated so non finance people can roughly understand what happens. Madoff is made to be the narrator of the movie and it helps to make things clear. Victims, clients, whistle blowers, the SEC dropping the ball, and the perpetrators in Madoff's company are all shown. The look at what happened in Madoff's own family is quite fascinating. His wife kids brother niece are all shown to be unknowing victims. The tragic suicide of his son Mark is quite moving. Would have liked a bit more about the recovery of the stolen money at the end.

The acting is fine. With so much going on in the story the main thing is that they should resemble the real people sufficiently. Richard Dreyfuss looks enough like Madoff and his benign slightly jovial approach actually is quite right. It keeps things flowing and not too depressing. Blythe Danner is physically suited to the role of Ruth. The actors who play his sons are don't look like them much - not great casting there. The supporting cast are good too especially those who play his staff.

Will be interesting to compare to to the upcoming HBO movie with Robert DeNiro as Madoff.

There was a follow up ABC documentary with interviews called "Bernie Madoff after the fall" that aired after the end of part 2 that is worth watching.

I was so pleased to hear that the A List actor Richard Dreyfuss (American Graffiti, Jaws, and The Goodbye Girl) signed on to play the U.S.A.'s biggest investment fraudster, the Ponzi scheme master, Bernie Madoff. From the beginning of the biographical film, Richard Dreyfuss narrates the Bernie Madoff biography and he walks us through his "modus operandi" how he conned so many smart and wealthy investors starting in 1960 when his accountant father-in-law introduces a young Bernie Madoff to his own circle of clients, as well as many elderly people who entrusted Bernie Madoff with their life savings.

Bernie's method of convincing investors to continue investing with him was to tell his clients that he was prepared to immediately cut them a cheque for their entire investment plus interest but then they would not be allowed to invest with him again. Madoff had his brother, wife and sons working in his firm and as the story progresses we really are left to wonder whether or not they knew anything about the Ponzi scheme, or did they just believe in Bernie Madoff the investment guru, who was their husband, father or brother.

Also agreeing to play in this non-sanctioned autobiography film "Madoff" are Blythe Danner as Bernie's wife, Peter Scolari as Bernie's brother Peter, Michael Rispoli as the behind the scenes book fixer, Charles Grodin as Carl Shapiro, Frank Whaley as a competitive broker named Harry Markopolos who figures out Bernie's secret method which is simply a fraud. Richard Dreyfuss's real life son Ben Dreyfuss plays the younger Bernie Madoff which makes it easier to believe the evolution of Bernie Madoff over the decades.

Slowly the film peels away each layer of skin one by one, on this onion and we get to see the real Bernie Madoff as the scammer that he really is and then how the S.E.C. (Securities and Exchange Commissions) closes in on him to eventually stop the bleeding and the U.S.A.'s biggest Ponzi scheme. Since the film was originally released as a two part story and it was deluged with commercial breaks I look forward to purchasing the DVD version and watching the film the way it should be seen, without any commercial breaks.

It is an excellent film with great insight into how easily thousands of investors were scammed for decades as long as the return on investments continued to be high and as Bernie would say "we need to continue to grow and find new investors". I give the film two thumbs up. Definitely worth investing your movie viewing time in, but not your money with Bernie Madoff who will remain in prison for his 150 year sentence.