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<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong><\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em><\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
(Jonathan Kim couldn’t resist the opportunity to review ‘Chasing Madoff’, so today’s ReThink Reviews strays into the horrors of recent non-fiction, you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up, events. )<\/em><\/p>\n
Chasing Madoff<\/strong><\/p>\n
On December 11, 2008, Bernie Madoff turned himself in to the FBI for running a Ponzi scheme worth tens of billions of dollars, making it one of the biggest crimes in the history of the world. The next year, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies, ensuring that he\u2019d spend the rest of his life in prison. But Madoff\u2019s story doesn\u2019t end there. And how could it, especially with the lingering mystery of how someone could conduct such a massive swindle, worth almost 65 billion dollars, and gone undetected for more than 20 years? <\/p>\n
The answer, sadly and maddeningly, is that it didn\u2019t, and the documentary \u2018Chasing Madoff\u2019 retells the story of a man who uncovered Madoff\u2019s deceptions in 1999, then desperately blew the whistle until he was almost out of breath.<\/p>\n
That whistleblower was Harry Markopolos, a Boston investment analyst who was asked in 1999 if he could figure out how Madoff\u2019s funds managed to stay consistently profitable over so many years regardless of market conditions. As Markopolos claims, it only took him five minutes to realize the obvious: it WASN\u2019T possible, meaning that the world\u2019s largest hedge fund was a fraud.<\/p>\n
Markopolos and some like-minded associates contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission, explained their findings, told the SEC where to look and the questions to ask to expose Madoff\u2019s scheme, and figured the matter would be dealt with swiftly, considering the seriousness of the crime. <\/p>\n
But instead, the SEC did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and that\u2019s a phrase you hear, in some form or another, throughout \u2018Chasing Madoff\u2019. At several points, Markopolos presents the SEC with increasingly detailed evidence explaining the workings of the Ponzi scheme, yet it never triggers an SEC investigation, even though Markopolos had basically already done it on his own.<\/p>\n
Despite the size and implications of the crime, the media was also strangely uninterested in exposing Madoff. But most of the blame in the film for failing to stop Madoff is directed at the SEC, to the point where it seems they should be considered accomplices for allowing the Ponzi scheme to continue for years after Markopolos exposed it, which made the eventual damage from the scheme\u2019s inevitable collapse much, much worse. Sadly, we\u2019re left wondering if the SEC was in cahoots with Madoff or is simply inept to an unfathomable degree, neither of which is acceptable.<\/p>\n
Director Jeff Prosserman tells Markopolos\u2019 story, which is based on Markopolos\u2019 best-selling book \u2018No One Would Listen\u2019, as if it were a detective story, which is not a bad idea. However, by going overboard on this, it often gives the impression that Prosserman is not convinced that the facts of the case are interesting enough and must be juiced with quick cuts and film noir imagery. <\/p>\n
Prosserman also has Markopolos play himself in re-enactments as Markopolos increasingly begins to fear for his safety due to the vast sums of money at stake and the powerful, possibly criminal elements involved. The problem is that Markopolos isn\u2019t an actor, and scenes showing Markopolos carrying a gun, practicing at a firing range, and checking his car for bombs are awkward and feel like efforts to add more tension and drama.<\/p>\n
A film like 2010\u2019s Oscar-winning documentary \u2018Inside Job\u2019 shows that the facts of our multi-faceted economic debacle are interesting enough on their own, and I wonder what a more accomplished, confident director would have done with this story. Still \u2018Chasing Madoff\u2019 is a valuable film that sheds needed light on the fact that Wall Street has bought off or weakened the watchdogs who are supposed to prevent the next economic crash, making you wonder how many more Bernie Madoff\u2019s are out there, and which one we\u2019ll be hearing about next.<\/p>\n
\u2018Chasing Madoff\u2019 is open in select theaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rethink-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}