6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A chronicle of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, which defrauded his clients of billions of dollars.
Starring: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Alessandro Nivola, Nathan Darrow, Kristen ConnollyDrama | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 2.0
English SDH, French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Do you have a “money manager”? Many Americans entrust their so-called “nest eggs” to corporate types of whom they have little knowledge, resorting to judging those folks solely by the returns they foster. My wife recently told me about a podcast she had listened to where some national data mining uncovered the fact that some of the highest paid money managers only managed to outperform a down and dirty basic index fund an insanely small amount of the time (like 1%), and then not by much (again, like 1%). Even those who pay attention to their returns might have been seduced by an unlikely charlatan, one Bernard Madoff (Robert De Niro), who operated what amounted to a Ponzi scheme which resulted in what many analysts have called the largest case of financial fraud ever perpetrated in the United States, and who simply made up the earnings he reported to his clients. Madoff’s surname, which served as a fitting summation for what he did (“made off” with others’ funds), has become synonymous with high powered malfeasance, but The Wizard of Lies takes that surname as an implied linking element for the entire Madoff family, revealing the actually kind of horrifying domino effect Bernie's criminal activities had on his wife and two sons. Anchored by some pitch perfect performances by De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff, as well as the involvement of journalist Diana B. Henriques playing herself (Henriques interviewed Madoff in prison as part of the background work on her book The Wizard of Lies, upon which this made for television film is based), The Wizard of Lies doesn't really provide any ultimate answers for why Madoff did what he did, but it's still a riveting portrait of a man whose unlikely exploits lead him to rather pointedly ask an unanswered question at the close of the film: "Do you think I'm a sociopath?".
The Wizard of Lies is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Shot with Arri Alexa cameras, this has the typically sharp and sleek if slightly flat look of this particular technology, with detail levels routinely high throughout the presentation, especially in the many extreme close-ups. Perhaps surprisingly for a "ripped from the headlines" docudrama, there's a fair amount of grading going on, including cool blue tones in the prison scenes, and some warmer hues in flashbacks documenting happier times for the Madoffs, but detail levels tend to be largely unaffected. Some of the dimly lit moments like the many interview scenes don't have much in the way of shadow definition, but the framings are generally fairly tight in these scenes anyway, consisting largely of the faces of Madoff and Henriques. There are no issues with compression anomalies or any image instability.
The Wizard of Lies features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that offers occasional good surround activity courtesy of scenes like raucous court proceedings, or even the weird dreamlike sequence where Bernie is having a rare interaction with his conscience while Judy Garland warbles "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" on the television. But a lot of the film plays out in quieter (if sometimes rather intense) dialogue scenes, and while not offering a glut of immersion, those do offer excellent fidelity and clear presentation.
If you're like a lot of us, you get your brokerage statements, give them a once over, and then promptly forget about them. Of course, if you're like me, you're certainly not dealing in the hundreds of millions of dollars like most of Madoff's clients were, but the cautionary tale The Wizard of Lies spins holds true no matter what the tax bracket: no one should be trusted absolutely with your money, no matter what their reputation or their seeming efficiency at getting you outrageous returns. This made for television effort may not answer any questions (and perhaps there aren't any satisfactory answers), but it provides a field day for a remarkable cast and it's consistently compelling, even if it's also extremely disturbing. Technical merits are strong, and even without much in the way of supplements The Wizard of Lies comes Recommended.
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