Chasing History with Bernie Madoff
Chasing Madoff opens this weekend at Varsity Theater
In 2011 alone we’ve been deluged with natural disasters (tsunami in Japan, Hurricane Irene), man-made disasters (Mobile offshore oil spill) and enough human drama (Chilean miners, WikiLeaks, the Egyptian revolution, Rupert Murdoch) to make us forget what happened last week.
With his new film, Chasing Madoff, filmmaker Jeff Prosserman turns back the clock to December 2008 when you couldn’t escape Bernie Madoff’s name no matter how many times you switched the channels. For his documentary, Prosserman puts the focus on the main whistle blower (and author of “No One Would Listen” on which the movie is based) in the Madoff saga, Harry Markopolos.
Not that Markopolos’ dogged pursuit led to Madoff’s downfall - although he did everything in his power to bring him down. In the end it was Madoff, realizing his $50 billion Ponzi scheme was days away from imploding, who turned himself into the Feds.
Chasing Madoff could just as easily been titled Chasing Markopolos. There is very little insight into what made Madoff tick as a person. Instead we are treated to a character study of Markopolos. And what a character he is.
For eight years Markopolos, a financial analyst by trade, had a pretty good idea (and proof) that Madoff was cooking the books. And for eight years he tried everything he could to bring the fraud to light - alerting the SEC, the press and badgering anyone else who was willing to listen. In fact, Markopolos sent a report to the SEC in 2005 entitled 'The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud.'
But as we now know - no one listened.
This non-fiction narrative work sprinkles plenty of reenactments that are worthy of a 1920’s noir thriller. A little jarring at first, but once you get to know Markopolos and his fellow whistle blowing compadres the additional dramatic flair starts to make sense.
There’s plenty of blame to go around in Chasing Madoff. Of course, the majority of blame rests justly on Madoff’s shoulders. Markopolos also scolds the SEC, bankers and the multi-nationals who were instrumental in making sure Madoff’s Ponzi scheme stayed afloat.
And while all those groups are guilty as charged, the group that seems to get a pass is the individual investors who were willing to put their money with Madoff as long as they were realizing unimaginable - and unrealistic - returns. Personal responsibility seems to have been left out of this particular equation.
Chasing Madoff exposes greed on many levels. Markopolos saw the tall tale signs before just about anyone else and took personal and professional risks to expose Madoff’s exploits. Chasing Madoff is a history lesson of recent events that have evaporated all too soon from our country's collective memory; it should be required viewing for all.
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Chasing Madoff is now playing at Landmark's Varsity Theater.
