CHASING MADOFF (Jeff Prosserman, U.S./Canada). 90 minutes.
Tuesday (May 10), 5:30 pm, Bloor. Rating: NN
For nearly a decade, as Bernie Madoff drained investors of untold millions with his elaborate Ponzi scheme, financial analyst Harry Markopolos was doing his best to warn people about him – but no one listened.
That tragic, ironic point is made over and over again in Jeff Prosserman’s plodding documentary, in which Markopolos tells his story in exhausting, outraged detail, backed up by colleagues and other experts who agree that Markopolos did indeed have Madoff’s number, but the Bush-era overseers of the financial sector just didn’t care.
It’s great that Markopolos’s righteous efforts are finally being acknowledged, but it quickly becomes clear that Prosserman isn’t going to address anything else. He just tracks Markopolos’s repeated attempts to call attention to Madoff’s scam in what feels like real time.
