Chasing Madoff
Cohen Media Group | Release Date: August 26, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
8
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanAug 24, 2011
Jeff Prosserman's riveting documentary takes a question that haunted the Bernie Madoff scandal - how did he fool everyone for so long? - and answers it with a decisive "He didn't." Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSep 8, 2011
The movie is anything but flawless. There are flourishes that seem plucked from Errol Morris' work but aren't as good, and some re-creations of past events are hokey. It's the film's content that packs a punch. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid DenbyAug 29, 2011
The movie ends in bitterness. Unable to prevent catastrophe, the most honorable man in this entire affair - an outcast among frauds and the cannily acquiescent - considers himself a failure. Read full review
70
NPRElla TaylorAug 25, 2011
His sorry tale is worth re-telling, if only to piece together the connective tissue between government, big business and, to a lesser degree, the media institutions that propped up what most insiders knew or suspected was a massive fraud for years before Madoff got his comeuppance. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttAug 23, 2011
In a sense, this is not a financial thriller so much as a financial mystery. Which gets a bit lost in the movie's stylized presentation. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertAug 31, 2011
Chasing Madoff is not a very good documentary, but it's a very devastating one. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonSep 2, 2011
A documentary that clearly aspires to the highest standards of cinematic muckraking but makes for a frustrating experience. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezAug 26, 2011
Chasing Madoff is as much a journalistic exposé of Madoff as it is a love letter to Markopolos, shot in the style of "Natural Born Killers" by a director terrified of boring his audience. In Proserman, the documentary genre finds its own Michael Bay. Read full review
50
The New York TimesDaniel M. GoldAug 25, 2011
The film is frustratingly uneven in its presentation. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAug 25, 2011
The unintended take-away is that you can grasp why the Securities and Exchange Commission - terribly negligent though it was in investigating Madoff - might dismiss the claims of someone so theatrically odd. Read full review
50
VarietyJohn AndersonAug 25, 2011
Chasing Madoff is a useful reminder that all is far from well with our financial institutions, which continue to lobby for less regulation rather than more. But the human element of the film is so weirdly distracting it often deflects from its primary target. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerryAug 25, 2011
Director Jeff Prosserman's retelling borders on reprehensible, as he attempts to heighten an already powerful tale with a parade of needless bells and whistles, from flashy camera work to melodramatic reenactments. What a shame, because the story is truly astonishing. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisAug 25, 2011
Chasing Madoff is mostly that sort of movie, the kind you make when all you've seen is other movies and television shows about crime, when you want someone to know what you can do with a juicy story that takes some effort to ruin. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAndrew SchenkerAug 23, 2011
Too bad Prosserman can't trust his material: Overloading the screen with aesthetic dross, the director offers up tiresome symbolic imagery of blood-soaked hands, burning money, and out-of-focus documents. Rather than amping up the intensity, these fast-cut sequences prove disastrously distracting. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniSep 1, 2011
Viewers get very little about Madoff himself. While the film is primarily about Markopolos, it makes little sense without much insight into his nemesis. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickAug 26, 2011
Markopolos repeatedly tells us he was scared for his life -- accompanied by hokey archival clips and music -- though nothing actually happened to him. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineNick SchagerAug 22, 2011
The fawning personal-life segments are overdone, and undermine the film's compelling reportage about Madoff's ruse and downfall. Read full review
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