Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Madoff: The Monster Of Wall Street’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About The Financier And His Massive Ponzi Scheme

Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street is a four-part docuseries, directed by Joe Berlinger, about the origins of the Ponzi scheme that bilked investors big and small out of billions of dollars, and led to his arrest amid the 2008 financial collapse. Through archive footage, including a prison deposition given by Madoff himself during his victims’ lawsuit, interviews with Madoff employees and financial reporters, and dramatic reenactments, we get a clearer picture about the origins of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and his motivations for doing it.

MADOFF: THE MONSTER OF WALL STREET: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A look at a golf course at an oceanside country club. One of Bernie Madoff’s investors talks about him and his mother meeting Bernie and Ruth Madoff at the club in 2005, and his mother saying that Bernie never looked her in the eye.

The Gist: The first episode talks about Madoff’s early days trading over-the-counter stocks in the early ’60s, working alongside his young wife Ruth. It also goes over the beginnings of an investment advisory business that he operated on the side. There was an early incident where he suffered a huge loss and borrowed money from his father-in-law to pay back investors; his thinking is that he’d rather be a liar than a failure.

But the legitimate stock trading business took off along with his advisory business, which had two accountants constantly recruiting him new investors. He went from OTC trades, eventually being part of the founding of the Nasdaq index, to a “market maker” trading house, serving as the middleman during stock trades. He pioneered the use of computers to speed up trades. He was one of the few market maker trading houses to stay open during and after the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987.

Despite his rise in the ranks of the stock world, Madoff continued the advisory business, even though he never invested any money and just used new investors’ money to pay “returns” to existing investors. Even after the accountants that brought him the business got busted by the SEC in 1992, he managed to finagle the hundreds of millions he needed to pay back investors, and then those investors just worked with him directly. The SEC closed their investigation into him during that period when he gave the agency faked investment statements.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Madoff: The Monster Of Wall Street definitely feels like a Berlinger-directed docuseries, with a heavy amount of reenactments and a bit of a sensationalist vibe. See Conversations With A Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes as an example of this.

Our Take: One of the major aspects of the Bernie Madoff case that most people don’t understand is how the Ponzi scheme he ran got so big, and how he managed to get so many investors — big and small — to buy in. You have to remember, the people who lost money to Madoff ranged from Florida retirees giving him their nest eggs to the former owners of the New York Mets. Madoff: The Monster Of Wall Street does a good job of explaining just what Madoff’s Ponzi scheme consisted of and how he kept it going. We just wish that Berlinger didn’t lard things down with reenactments.

Madoff’s story, and the story of the people who entrusted their life savings with him, is pretty compelling on its own. After all, this is a man who became one of the more highly respected figures in finance, but somehow decided it was worth carrying on this Ponzi scheme for decades, either out of ego or sociopathy or a desire not to be seen as a failure. The other side of that coin is the people who, seeing the steady and relatively sizable returns Madoff was promising, never rose red flags and just continued handing him money. As one of the experts mentioned, that side of it was motivated by greed, even on a small scale.

There’s more than enough footage of Madoff, especially from the period where he was on trial, to his prison deposition, to make compelling visuals. Yet, we were distracted the many reenactments, and it just seemed like a while lot of window dressing for what was already a pretty interesting story.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: A reenactment of the messy chaotic advisory office set up one floor below the pristine trading office. “This is where the Ponzi scheme would grow exponentially in the years ahead,” says an expert, “into a fraud on steroids.”

Sleeper Star: Kate Carolan and Gordon Bennett were two good examples of small-scale investors in Madoff’s fund. The couple did what they thought was due diligence on Madoff, and he seemed as legit as they came. None of the info about the steady returns that outpaced the market raised any red flags with them. They illustrate how even smart investors could be taken in by Madoff’s seeming legitimacy and the consistent returns he was offering.

Most Pilot-y Line: We kept getting distracted by the fact that the actor who plays Madoff, in various age appropriate wigs, looked more like Ben Stein than Bernie Madoff.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the distracting reenactments, Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street imparts a lot of good information about Madoff’s psyche, the structure of his Ponzi scheme, and why people invested in it in the first place.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.