CHASING MADOFF (Canada/USA 2011) ****
Directed by Jeff Prosserman

If a documentary is as interesting as its subject, then the doc CHASING MADOFF should have enough material to interest a lot of people as its subject is Bernie Madoff, the man who stole close to $18 billion.

As the title implies CHASING MADOFF takes a look at how one investigator, Harry Markopolos spent ten years trying to expose Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme that scammed an estimated $18 billion from investors.  If this film is about one man, it is actually about Markopolos rather than Madoff.  The only time the audience sees Madoff is in archive footage.

The film includes interviews with Harry Markopolos and fellow investigators Frank Casey, Neil Chelo, Michael Ocrant, and Gaytri Kachroo over how they pursued and exposed Bernie Madoff and his elaborate Ponzi scheme for bilking investors out of $50 billion.  The frustration and work involved is documented and displayed fully so that the audience themselves can get angry at how useless the FCC is in examining Markoplos case.  The scene where the FCC is scolded in court is repeated more than once is evident that Posserman is an angry documentary maker.

But the film goes all out to praise Markopolos as a dauntless hero, which he humbly denies he is.  “I am just doing my job.” But those cheated out of home and livelihood from Madoff’s scheme must surely be thankful to Markoplos.  Again, Presserman repeats interviews with the many who have lost everything to make his point.

The film works more like a detective story than a story about Bernie Madoff the man.  One wishes more information be given about Madoff and how he came across the idea or how he expanded his Ponzi scheme.  Still, Prosserman’s aim for his film is something else, which is to document the chase and arrest of Madoff, while igniting the fury of the audience for the government officials who had the responsibility to look after the country’s investments but did not do their job.  This job Prosserman more than succeeds.  When the narrator reveals than Madoff will be imprisoned for a lifetime and a half and that Madoff’s son committed suicide on the father’s first anniversary of his arrest, the audience can only feel too pleased!