Beautiful, moving film.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro) is being interview by writer Diana Henriques whose book on which this movie is based. The respected legend of Wall Street is in prison for the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. The other protagonists are his wife Ruth (Michelle Pfeiffer) and their two sons, Andrew and Mark.This is a HBO film from legendary director Barry Levinson. It doesn't really expand on the plot or the scam. It's more of a character piece for the family. I really like the father son relationships. It would be great to make this a Mark Madoff movie. De Niro is solid as an unrepentant Bernie. Pfeiffer is doing a version of Ruth which gets a little bothersome. She's whiny and plays herself as a victim but not in a fun way. The movie needs some fun and she would be good for that. In the end, the acting is solid. There is some sympathetic takes on the Madoff sons. There are other better takes on the Madoff scandal but this one is pretty good.

I was somewhat surprised by this biopic, since I'm well-acquainted with the modern Ponzi scheme story and $65 Billion ripoff committed by private investment firm. But even for those familiar with the general story, the documentary provides a fascinating portrait of the Madoff family and the central characters. Overall it reminds me of an epic Greek tragedy.The principal crime committed by Bernie Madoff is clearcut. In essence Madoff run a hedge fund that were one big hoax based on a pyramid investment scheme. All ROIs were fictitious and existing investors were paid by the money provided by subsequent investors. Aside from defrauding rich individuals of European royalty, Madoff took advantage of the fact that he as a jewish investor had excellent contacts to other wealthy American jews, which allowed him to swindle countless of the latter of all their retirement savings. All in all, in the end it led to countless tragedies and suicides on both continents.The financial thriller behind it has been well-told by previous accounts, particularly 'No One Would Listen' by Harry Markopolos (i.e. the financial analyst struggled to expose the fraud for many years). It's also true that the ramifications would have been much more limited if the SEC would have done their job properly.However, what this biopic does is following Bernie Madoff and the effects of the exposure on his own family, i.e. particularly his wife Ruth and his two adult sons. It seems as his family was completely unaware of the fraud and the movie does a good job in explaining how his sons never got the information from their dominating father. Later, when it all blew up the fraud also wreaked havoc on the lives of his wife and sons.In the end, it was all for nothing. The family members would lived longer and happier lives without massive fraud committed by the Bernard. While the portrait of him is by no means completely unsympathetic, he remains seemingly oblivious even to this day to the devastation he caused in so many lives, including to those nearest to him.The main roles played by Robert de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer are brilliant, but also the less-known actors playing his two sons.

Oscar winning director Barry Levinson had big success by teaming up with HBO on You Don't Know Jack.This time Levinson and HBO have teamed up with Robert De Niro on the true life tale of Bernie Madoff whose fake investment vehicle was exposed during the 2008 financial crisis. Madoff operated a Ponzi/Pyramid scheme where you robbed Peter to pay Paul.When you have movies such as The Big Short and Margin Call that have done a brutal expose of the financial crisis, The Wizard of Lies just felt redundant with an almost movie of the week sheen about it.The film had a confusing narrative and an uneven script. It wants to explain the investigation on Madoff, what his sons knew about the firm's precarious position as well as explain Madoff's investment fraud to the audience.It was best when it was at its simplest. Bernie Madoff telling someone he was a simple man from a humble family then throwing a lavish party where he wanted fresh lobsters caught that morning, not freshly frozen and clean plates. Madoff and his family lived an extravagant lifestyle, it was all based on other people's money. Madoff targeted wealthy Jews like him and royally ripped them off. Once he was exposed many of his victims found out that they were penniless.I found the film dragged and was rather boring. Despite a sterling performance from De Niro and being based on true, tragic events, it was just not interesting enough.

You may ask why so many TV treatments of the Madoff affair. But the story is so colossal a tragedy that it is fascinating to watch even though you know all the events. Compared to the Richard Dreyfuss Blythe Danner version of events, this is more stylishly directed more serious in tone. The casting is better too. But there is a bit less detail because it's shorter. There isn't much about how he built up the Ponzi scheme it's more about the downfall and the tragic effect on his sons. It is quite sympathetic to his sons portraying them like victims although some of Bernie's victims might not think they were totally innocent. It isn't sympathetic to Bernie but he does give an excuse about the extent of their losses saying he warned people not to give him not more than half to invest. So why people lost everything was due to their own greed.Robert De Niro looks so much like Madoff there were some scenes I couldn't tell which was footage and which was acting. Michelle Pfeiffer is of course too pretty for Ruth but she acts well and gets that pinched half anorexic Upper East Side look.