Year: 2019
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Country: US
Language: English
Loosely based on the material of Jake Bernstein’s 2017 book, Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite, Steven Soderbergh's The Laundromat dissects the Panama Papers scandal of 2016 with a humorous quality reminiscent of Adam McKay's The Big Short (2015). The Netflix film uses complex topics like fraud, shell companies, and tax evasion into something that is meant to be part educational, part entertainment.
Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) begins investigating a fake insurance policy, only to find herself down a rabbit hole of questionable dealings that can be linked to a Panama City law firm and its vested interest in helping the world's wealthiest citizens amass larger fortunes.
If you're like me and don't know and/or aren't aware of much of the films' subject matter The Laundromat will be really hard to follow. there is so much information dumped on you by a variety of characters that you'll find yourself less entertained and more feeling like you signed up for an economics class. The well dressed Ramón Fonseca Mora (Antonio Banderas) and Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) try to guide us in this world ala Wolf of Wall Street (2013), but Leonardo De Caprio's Jordan Belfort they are not. Instead of engaging and charismatic, they come off as just awful people.
The Laundromat tries to approach such serious economic issues with some levity and flashiness, but doesn't quite convince us. I will it admit that it does looks great, it is a Soderbergh film afterall, and is well acted by 2020 Oscar nominee Meryl Streep. Some scenes are engaging, such as the man trying his his affair from his wife, but a few solid scenes do not make up for a mishapen film.
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