The Wizard of Lies

This is an HBO movie that my wife and I watched at home on DVD from our public library.

We remember it well, roughly 9 years ago when the big financial market decline was spooking all investors, out of the smoke came the Bernie Madoff fiasco. Who would have thought that a well-respected member of the New York financial community would have been running a simple Ponzi Scheme for upwards of 16 years? For upwards of $65 Billion? That's what this movie is about, who Madoff is, what he did, and what was his motivation?

Robert De Niro is Bernie Madoff and Michelle Pfeiffer is his wife Ruth Madoff. They were in their 60s when all this went down. Madoff was a good salesmen, for years he convinced wealthy investors to put their money with his "fund" which was a phantom paper exercise. He showed them exceptional financial growth year after year but when the financial crisis hit and large investors started wanting their money it soon was all gone. Madoff didn't put up any resistance, he didn't try to divert blame, he admitted guilt when approached by authorities.

Good movie of a sad case in investment history, makes you wonder what is going on right now.