Over-Produced, Misguided ‘Chasing Madoff’ Buries the Lead

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Rating: 1.5/5.0

CHICAGO – What Errol Morris does so well is very, very difficult. He takes unusual interview subjects (“Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control,” “Mr. Death), sometimes even with a political background (“The Fog of War,” “Standard Operating Procedure”) and makes them completely riveting. Clearly inspired by the Morris filmography, Jeff Prosserman’s “Chasing Madoff” attempts that blend of personality and history but falls flat on its face. Rarely has a documentary taken a more interesting story and told it in a more annoying manner.

Chronicling the men who smelled something foul in the Bernie Madoff portfolio years before anyone paid attention to what would eventually become one of the stinkiest situations in the economic downfall, “Chasing Madoff” has interesting interview subjects at its core. I’d love to actually be able to sit down and listen to what they did without all the over-dramatization of this movie. I’m not sure if Prosserman simply didn’t trust that he had a compelling-enough story without tricks or if he was consciously going for the Morris weird-but-true aesthetic. Either way, some disastrous pre-production decisions were made and, much like the people who ignored the illegal acts of a very bad man, some significant filmmaking problems were never addressed.

Chasing Madoff
Photo credit: Cohen Media Group

Based on the book “No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller” by Harry Markopolos, this is the almost-100%-true story of the man who authored the source material and whose interviews serve as a vast majority of the running time of the documentary. If you have issues with Mr. Markopolos (and I have a few), you’re going to have issues with the film because he’s as front-and-center as Morgan Spurlock in one of his non-fiction works. Apart from whether or not Markopolos works as a film subject, he certainly saw something that others had missed when he tried to blow the whistle on Bernie Madoff a full decade before anyone did a damn thing about it.

Having said that, it’s odd to me that “Chasing Madoff” would focus so much on the whistleblower instead of the actual whistle. I don’t need to spend time in Harry Markopolos’s high school and hear about his marriage or other personal issues to the extent that is presented in “Chasing Madoff.” He’s an interesting guy but a good filmmaker would let him be an interesting guy through the details of his story, not by blowing them up to larger than life status. Perhaps concerned that the financial minutia of the Madoff scandal would be too dry (Prosserman should have watched the amazing “Inside Job” to see how to make fiscal drama into riveting filmmaking), the movie is over-produced with thriller elements. We see Markopolos trying on bulletproof vests in one of MANY sequences meant to illustrate the fear that the potential wealth that this man was going to put a stop to might get him killed.

Chasing Madoff
Photo credit: Cohen Media Group

The bulletproof vest scene is one of several reenactments that come off as paranoid and embarrassing more than actually dramatically engaging. Reenactments are a tricky game and when you have non-actors like Markopolos engaging them they can often end up in that truly uncomfortable zone in which people aren’t convincing telling their own stories. They’re over-produced, over-cooked, and over-done, such as when Prosserman adds sound effects like guns being cocked or car explosions to try and heighten the fear. He clearly thought his story was too boring and needed a little flavor but that decision backfires in every way.

At one point, Markopolos is quoted as having said “This will be the biggest thing in the world that anybody will ever see.” Clearly, there’s an ego at play here that a talented documentarian could have mined for non-fiction filmmaking gold. Bernie Madoff’s crimes were borne of ego – a man who thought he could get away with anything. There’s an irony in the fact that a man who comes off as one of the most egotistical documentary subjects of the year is the one who took him down.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com