Review: ‘Chasing Madoff’
"Chasing Madoff" has an engaging story to tell but can't get out of its own way to tell it. A documentary about a Boston securities analyst who spent 10 years obsessively trying to prove that Bernie Madoff was a crook, the film (produced, written and directed by Jeff Prosserman) manages to be somewhat engaging simply because the tale's detective-story quality is inherently fascinating. But as it rolls along, "Chasing Madoff" becomes more and more maddening. You almost end up feeling bad for Madoff: His epic collapse deserves something more slipshod than this.
A film so hyperbolic and one-sided that it makes the recent pro-Sarah Palin documentary "The Undefeated" seem almost restrained by comparison, "Chasing Madoff" focuses on Harry Markopolos, who worked at a rival firm from that of Bernard L. Madoff Securities. In a series of speaking-into-the-lens interviews, Markopolos and a few associates explain how they began to realize that Madoff's consistently excellent rates of returns had to be a sham, eventually uncovering that the revered investment giant was operating a Ponzi scheme all along.
Prosserman's film starts off with real potential, promising to offer the audience the sweet, slow satisfaction of watching Madoff's callousness and greed be brought to the light. But "Chasing Madoff" easily and often overplays that hand, quickly draping Markopolos in the cloak of a hero without really getting to know him at all. That's particularly disappointing since he has all the makings of a complex documentary character worthy of Errol Morris or Werner Herzog. A nerdy, irritable, increasingly paranoid fellow, Markopolos can barely contain his anger (even after all this time) that journalists and the SEC failed to heed his warnings about Madoff. But the documentary never really probes his obsession -- never mind his terror that he was going to get whacked at any second -- other than suggesting that he's always had a sense of right and wrong, which doesn't come close to explaining the rage and drive that powered his decade-long quest.
But Prosserman isn't interested in being very sophisticated in any regard. While it's not uncommon for nonfiction films to insert fictional recreations of events, it is common for those sequences not to be horribly cheesy or to star the actual participants, who are then forced to act when they most definitely are not actors. It's been a problem that too many recent documentaries try too hard to entertain us at all times, but "Chasing Madoff" hits some kind of new low, mixing in awfully phony archival footage and endless up-close photos of Madoff to heighten the drama.
And yet, the subject matter at hand has such power that the movie sometimes succeeds despite itself. Prosserman's interviews with families who lost their life savings because of Madoff can't help but touch the heart, and the stunning incompetence of the institutions meant to protect us from bums like Madoff remains enraging. So the content is there for a thoughtful, engrossing documentary. Too bad Prosserman dropped the ball. A friend's wife who attended the screening with me suggests the best way to watch "Chasing Madoff": Keep your eyes closed and just listen to the interviews. That way, you get all the facts with none of Prosserman's overkill. I wish I could have.
Grade: C+
