davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningAfter the worldwide financial crash of 2008, as that notorious year drew to a close, another massive monetary scandal hit the headlines, in the shape of Bernie Madoff (Robert De Niro), who created a Ponzi scheme that defrauded an endless stream of investors. Speaking on the record to a journalist from prison, he recounts how it all got started, when it all went wrong and the massive impact it had on his wife Ruth (Michelle Pfeiffer) and sons Andrew (Nathan Darrow) and Mark (Alessandro Nivola), who both passed away during his incarceration.Whilst the big screens of the cinemas are clogged up with superhero franchises, and various other loud, mindless mayhem simply designed to suck cash from a loyal fan base, it's falling on online streaming services such as Netflix, or television channels like HBO to bring us weightier, more dynamic and ambitious drama, drawing in the big names along with it. Such has been the case with director Barry Levinson's portrait of Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street fat cat and living embodiment of the 'greed is good' mantra that went so grossly off course.Whilst every other form of diversity is being celebrated and pumped for maximum effect, Hollywood seems to forget that not so long ago, ageism was the number one accusation coming its way, with dozens of older stars pushed to the side lines in favour of younger talent. And so it's to his credit with this that Levinson is able to highlight was this was such a folly, as it seems to be the age and experience of the seasoned, veteran cast that make it work so well. Being the same age as lead star De Niro, the pair seem to have formulated some fine actor/director dynamic that makes it all flow smoothly. It's interesting to think how this might have worked out if it had been another De Niro collaboration with Martin Scorsese, as Madoff appears to be on familiar territory with the type of characters they've explored before, a gruff mobster type using coarse language and taking no sh!t.De Niro never loses his ability to carry a film, and here he perfectly fits the skin of this emotionally detached manipulator, who possesses the ability to destroy hundreds of lives with the coldness of a mass murderer. At the end, as he struggles to comprehend his comparison to serial killer Ted Bundy, does the realization of his persona seem to remotely dawn on him. ****

Joetampa90 Finally De Niro takes a break from hack comedies and mailed in roles for direct to red box garbage films! He delivers his best performance since "Jackie Browne" here as real life super villain Bernie Madoff. The movie itself is a long winded and sometimes trudging look at Madoff's life beginning when he comes clean as essentially a scam artist. De Niro transforms into the ultra rich and short tempered Bernie masterfully. I'm happy to see this after years of writing him off as a guy who'd lost his touch and just does it for the money. This is especially important to see with his upcoming reunion with Pesci and Scorsese in "The Irishman" looming.As a film I'd say this work gets the job done and serves its purpose well. Veteran workman director Barry Levinson who's three plus decade catalog includes all sorts of movies has made a pretty good movie here, possibly one of his best ever? It does not really wow you in anyway but it's also by no means bad. I especially enjoyed the scene in which Bernie attempts suicide with his wife and ends up hallucinating. The Wizard of Lies gets a 7 out of 10 which on my scale makes it a "good" movie, but it surely falls short of greatness with it's mostly straight forward and often dragging delivery.

Gordon-11 This film tells the story of the biggest scandal on Wall Street, where a multi-billionaire swindles billions out of his customers in a giant Ponzi scheme.What makes "The Wizard of Lies" interesting and captivating is that it does not get into the technical stuff of Wall Street. It focuses on the human side of the characters, namely their thoughts, their hopes and their dreams. The scene when Mr Madoff tells Mark that he is not up to scratch for the business is really heart breaking. Mark's brief and simple responses tell so much, and the viewers are left to fill in the blanks regarding the disappointment and devastation that Mark must have felt. Mrs Madoff's misfortune of being blamed for something she had no involvement in is very sad as well. The whole film makes me feel very sorry for the Madoff family. "The Wizard of Lies" has good story telling, and it has a good story to tell.

ElliesWonder My mood was ambivalent after this movie, I felt bad for the character even he is a criminal. The feeling is only towards to the movie character basic on the plot, not to the real Bernie Madoff. Anyway, I knew nothing about this former financier, except the legend of the oldest supermodel, Carmen Dell' Orefice, she was a victim I heard, and been forced to go back stage in old age because all her money invested into Bernie's programs.I feel sorry, but not really in a strong compassion, I am not heartless, but I can't have an empathy with something I never been though. Just like newspapers have countless bad news everyday, people feel sad about those news, but we move on and turn to another page afterward. It was difficult to shed my tears of compassion for them, especially in age ago.Besides, as a sapiosexual, I can't avoid being attracted to a high intelligence character, even he is criminal. Playing with $65 billions, I just want to ask the same question as the New York Times journalism as, how could he sleep with that giant Ponzi scheme? A lie needs more lies to complete, giving a lie requires facial expressions control, logical thinking ability, and prognosis ability, that is why lying is so difficult, and lies from kids are easy to nail because their cognize and emotion are so limited. It was simply fascinating and attractive to watch this story based on the plot. He was genius no doubt, but sadly not used in right way.