Chasing Madoff

source: Chasing Madoff

I've watched the De Niro and Dreyfuss movies a couple of times each and like them. As entertainment, Dreyfuss is better, but both are well made films, well directed, well acted. They hit the right notes for movie buffs. But both of those movies miss the point. The point isn't that Bernie Madoff was a swindler. That's a boring story. Madoff started out selling penny stocks and in the end he was never much more than a penny-stock putz. Sure he may have been chairman of NASDAQ at one point, but if you're under the impression that putzes aren't running the world, well, God bless you. No the permanently interesting story of the Madoff scandal is the same as the story of the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos scandal: how they got away with it, how the people who should have known better, didn't, in fact, the folks who should have known better actively enabled the fraudsters. This movie gets that part of the story right: It's a story about the SEC. It should be clear now that the people in Washington and elsewhere who are supposed to be protecting the American people, aren't. They aren't even trying hard. And when they fail, OTHER PEOPLE's lives are destroyed but they keep getting promoted, or they move to even better-paying jobs outside government. Warning: Watch this film after watching The Big Short and you may be inclined to cash in your retirement funds and put the money into something safe and solid like Bitcoin. (Just kidding.) I'm not a cynic. This is just how it is, and this movie certainly demonstrates that. Now about the other aspects of this movie: It should have been a one-hour show. Too much about Markopolos' anxieties about the danger he might be in. I'm willing to say that he was not being unreasonable. But in retrospect, he was NOT killed or assaulted, and that part of the story -- the personal and emotional effect of being a Cassandra -- is real, but can't be appreciated by any of us. Markopolos is right: He's NOT a hero. He was a Cassandra. And Cassandra wasn't a hero. She was a prophet that no one listened to.

Read works of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Gore Vidal. Then, if you comprehend, you will understand the quality and appropriateness of this documentary. I live near Boston, and therefore understand the culture Harry Markopolos grew up under. Why some citizens get it, and some don't is exactly the problem with education in the US. Study linguistics. Read or listen to the book Manufacturing Consent for a good education on what controls your thinking. Ask why did the SEC not act upon this? The specialized class has us all under a tractor beam - if you chose to do nothing. This is not new information in any way. You just may have missed it when it was first published. Thank you!

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.

Based on the Book by Harry Markopolos "No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller", the Story of an Intense Investigation of Bernie Madoff trying to find out if Fraud was being Perpetrated on the Public by Madoff in a "Ponzi Scheme" or was it all some kind of Super-Genius at Work. The Book could and should have been Titled…"No One Cared"...because They did Listen but more Importantly didn't care. Probably because Someone, if not Everyone was either told "Not to Care" or because Someone and more probably Everyone was...wait for it...MAKING MONEY. The Security Exchange Commission (SEC) Higher Ups, and, as We are told, Madoff created an Octopus Monster with Tentacles reaching all over the World and its reach was not only Wide but High, sometimes Sliming its way to the Top of the Global Pyramid. No Wonder "No One Would Listen", or more Accurately No One Cared. Even Most if Not Some of the Madoff Investors, especially those involved in Finance, knew for a Probability if Not a Certainty that something wasn't "Right/Legal". But the Gravy Boat was Rolling so why Rock it. The Documentary is a High-Style entry in the many Expanded News Stories and Examinations done since Bernie Madoff turned Himself in (to avoid assassination). In this one the Focus is On Markopolos and Associates reliving "Their" Story. It's Glossy and includes Glitzy Dramatizations and Over the Top Archival Footage to Enhance the Entertainment Value. Those that want "Just the Facts, thank You Mam", might Find this a bit too Self-Conscious and at times Silly. There are other Products out there that are Straight Documentaries. This one is Far From Straight. It makes its Point with Paraded Out Footage from Gangster Newsreels and even Movies. Maybe too Fluffy for Some, but this Documentary is made for the Masses and tries to the Extreme to be "A Financial Thriller". It somewhat Succeeds, but is not going to Please Everyone like Madoff Did...Until He Didn't.

The story of Bernie Madoff is well known; the biggest Ponzie-scheme ever! Less well known is how Madoff was de-cloaked. Chasing Madoff tells this story, but not in a very well executed way. The speed of the movie is more like a MTV-clip than a documentary. And I found this distracting. Also quit a lot of the time the movie constitutes of people telling how good they themselves were in catching Madoff. With all due respect for the people who brought Madoff to justice; I would have enjoyed it much more if the story was told at a slower pace and if at had been a story about the hunters. All The Presidents Men is an great example what could have been....

This documentary, written and directed by Jeff Prosserman, is an absolutely scathing indictment of the SEC, our Federal Gov't, and Wall Street. I remember when the Madoff fraud came to light, amidst the world financial crisis, seeing Harry Markopolos testifying before Congress, and giving other interviews. I was incredulous at first, that his man had tipped off the SEC about Madoff many years before and that no action was taken. However, as the truth and the facts have emerged, I now believe every last scintilla of what he said. How is this possible? The SEC, whose primary role is to investigate fraud in the financial industry and make sure the players in the financial world are playing by the rules, did nothing to expose a multi-billion dollar fraud. They couldn't even make a few phone calls, as Markopolos states, which would have easily exposed that their alleged trades were never done. You see in the film, several members of Congress, grilling present and former SEC execs and auditors, and asking the same question. None of them had any answers. Yet, now years later there have been very few arrests and indictments not only regarding the Madoff case but for any of the fraudsters involved in the world banking crisis. So, one may ask have we really learned our lesson? The documentary is kind of a strange one because it can really be melodramatic as Markopolos recounts all the events that occurred regarding Madoff. He may even seem a little paranoid at times, as he worries about his, and his family's safety, as a prime whistleblower. My personal opinion is that he had reason to worry, as strange beatings, threats, and deaths have occurred to some who put themselves out there like that. To me, in summary, this is a scary piece of film, which highlights how embedded the elite are in running our financial systems. Is it any wonder that the Occupy Wall Street messages caught on like wildfire for awhile. The 1% almost always run the show at the expense of the rest of us 99%er's

Markopolis was a hero in my book for a brief moment. That ended after I saw multiple interviews with him and this documentary. This documentary is basically a Markopolis worship movie. Throughout we are told how big of a hero he is, that he needs to fear for his and his family safety, that he has a gun and how special he is in general. It's tiring beyond imaginable borders. Frankly, Markopolis' behaviour looks buffoon-ish. He never was in any danger. And he did not chase Madoff because he has a good heart. It all started because Markopolis was chasing for Madoff's secret because Madoff stole much of the customers from Markopolis' employer. His employer asked if he could find out how Madoff did it. The victims were mostly of Jewish heritage, much to the dismay of the Jewish community as it gave them a bad name for being greedy and Madoff being a Jew himself offcourse. By now about 80% of the funds have been retrieved and given back to the victims. Like mentioned before, this documentary is mostly about Markopolis' supposed greatness. We won't learn much about the ins and outs of how things went down. The documentary should have told in what ways the governmental institutions failed. Yet this kind of information is kept to a minimum and at a very low level. There are much better documentaries out there. I saw an interview where Markopolis claimed that only Wall Street papers were negative about this movie, as it supposedly tried to make Wall Street look bad. But having seen this documentary myself, I now must side with those papers in this very instance.

There seems to be a lot of polarity about this film. People seem to either love it or hate it. I don't get this. People who make investments are relatively well off. You can't invest with Bernie Madoff in an IRA or a 401(k), so we are talking about people that have money to invest beyond an IRA or a 401(k). We are talking about rich people. People with millions and millions of dollars that they don't know what to do with. These people need to be PROTECTED from the actions of the likes of Bernie Madoff. That's right. Rich people need -the government- to protect them from the being ripped off. Yes, even liberals, or people that you think are liberals, can see that rich people need to be treated fairly.

Well, what a huge disappointment that was. "A look at how one investigator spent ten years trying to expose Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme." Too bad this one investor, Harry Markopolos, turns out to be one of the most uninteresting people alive. I was looking forward to get detailed information on Madoff, but unfortunately I got to see Markopolos parents, school, church, his extreme paranoia about getting killed and loads of other information I didn't care about. The information in this documentary could have been cut to +/- 30 minutes without all of the useless stuff. It's a shame, because this documentary could have been really great if it would provide more information about Madoff himself.