HBO's Bernie Madoff Film, "The Wizard of Lies"

They just had the Richard Dreyfus one on CBS. But I am a sucker for HBO so I will be watching.

De Niro was just going off on Trump while promoting this film again, calling him a pig and likening him to Bernie, calling him a con artist.

Amazingly, Ruth Madoff allowed Michelle Pfeiffer into her home.

I hope De Niro doesn't just 'phone it in' and actually ACTS. He's been sleepwalking through movies for years and cashing those big checks.

Should be interesting, the other one with Dreyfus was pretty good and it is a story of epic proportions that ruined a lot of people on both sides.

Just watched the trailer, wow Michelle really does a good Ruth.

How did the CBS one handle the suicide?

It is the same as the Richard dreyfuss one. Not interested. Richard did a better job based on this trailer.

I'm there. I saw the documentary and it was fascinating. I love De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, and I think the supporting cast looks good.

YOu know in some ways this has the dimensions of a Shakespearean tragedy if you look at it from the perspective of his sons. Now that was the real tragedy IMO.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

What did Ruth do to her lips? Did she get tattooing done? They did it to Michelle and it helped seal the look.

He's just yet another disgusting pedophile criminal jew......oxymoron. Any Bagel Eater you see on TV or in the government is a disgusting pedophile criminal. Sure, the Jewbies rob us blind (we send the bagel fucks hundreds of billions of dollars every year so they can shoot 10-y.o. boys for throwing rocks at armored vehicles) yet the sheeple still suck the pedo jew cockmeat.

[quote]Will anyone be turning in this Saturday?

I "turn in" every night, OP. Don't you?

[quote]They just had the Richard Dreyfus one on CBS.

1. DreyfusS

2. ABC, not CBS.

The other seven words in your post were correct.

Ruth is still living well, too well for what she deserves. Though with 2 sons dead, a husband in prison, and her reputation shot I can't imagine she's too happy.

Dreyfuss made Bernie likeable. This film did him justice. It showed him to be a miserable SOB. Superb performances all around. Now we have the "Pfeiffer scream" that directors can sample and use for centuries to come. lol

They couldn't afford some good lighting? Everything is murky.

It's supposed to be, although one scene was so dark I couldn't see Pfeiffer speaking at the table.

The actors playing the sons were hot.

Arzaria was a hoot.

Trailer is good, looks like a modern tragedy, but I feel like I've already seen the whole thing. I suppose they're working with the notion that we know how it ends, though.

I watched it last night, R18 &19 are right it really was dark and murky, I thought that I had the picture dimmed but it was just dark. I wasn't overly impressed with the movie. I thought Michelle Pfeiffer was good as Ruth. There was a scene where both Bernie and Ruth decide to commit suicide and take pills but it doesn't work, did that actually happen? I remember the time the events took place and it seemed like an epic tragedy, especially when the son kills himself and the other dies of cancer. I didn't feel that in this film, I guess they didn't want to portray any sympathy for Ruth or the family in the film.

R21 If I remember correctly, Ruth *said* the suicide attempt happened in an interview. Up until that point, Bernie hadn't bothered to mention it to anyone.

I followed the case from when the news first broke, and I've read this book, and a lot of articles about it. There was a documentary too. Excellent work. So I had a high level of interest and I was looking forward to it especially with De Niro & Michelle Pfeiffer in it. But for some reason this treatment seemed "off" to me. The performances were all very strong, but I just wasn't sure of the perspective. What was the point ? There was no through thread to grab your emotions. It lacked passion and perspective IMO. We know the story. So I was hoping for a fresh perspective. But I have to ask, just what the whole point of this movie was. Now De Niro was magnificent. The cast in general was excellent, but the screenplay, the perspective wasn't.

Yeah, they did try to commit suicide together and ended up waking up the next day. Ruth wrapped up items for family and sent it to them before they did it. The writer in the film in interviewing Bernie is playing herself. Unlike the CBS flick, this one had actually links to the Madoffs from the writer interviewing the real Bernie from behind bars to Pfeiffer getting access to Ruth. Ruth's life now really is unbelievable. She helps raise money for arts and crafts fairs for a local church, I believe, Christian, and hangs around lower-middle class fraus all day, and takes long walks on the beach alone, brings her dry cleaning to a little dry cleaners, goes to a local bagel shop and shops at a local CVS and buys and wears $20 CVS reading glasses. She's gets her hair dyed for $100 too. Considering how she used to live, it's amazing. She apparently still has no contact with Bernie. The Daily Mail has been following her every move this week. There's photos of her. Google News has it. She just turned 76.

Pfeiffer had a lot of sympathy for her due to her getting involved with Bernie at around 15 years old and having no life of her own and being kept in the dark like the sons. Then she lost her sons - one to suicide, then the other to cancer. One half of the family disowned her. She was cutoff from her grandchildren and her friends. Bernie even wiped out Ruth's sister's life savings. Ruth would probably have a better social life behind bars.

Haven't watched it yet, but I will.

I have to ask whether Lily Rabe was all Lily Rabe-ing through her scenes (as someone once remarked on an AHS thread years ago). I hope so, I like her style.

Agree with R23. I was looking forward to this as the find the story fascinating and the acting was terrific but it was kind off meh. Don't know exactly why. And yes again, it did seem very dark (lighting) for no reason.

R24 I had a feeling about the interviewer, I was wondering if she was playing herself. R26 I also had the same off feeling about it, I wonder if HBO had planned a mini series but then CBS did it and they decided to make it as a movie instead.

bore-fest.

Watched it and thought it was well done. DeNiro and Pfeiffer are two of my favorites and both were very good. She is still so beautiful.

Pfeiffer doesn't look like that at all. They even spray painted liver spots on her hands. It was quite a transformation. That was my issue with Danner. They didn't even attempt to get the wig right.

I liked it better than the Dreyfuss/Danner version. I never had any sympathy for anyone connected with this mess but I'll admit I kinda teared up when the son committed suicide. Considering Bernie thought very little of his sons I can't imagine he would ever fill them in on his scheme so I really do believe they were left in the dark. Ruth, not so sure. DeNiro's blankness really worked for Bernie and Pfeiffer really nailed it. And always nice to see Lily Rabe.

Lily Rabe is hardly in it, r25. The few scenes she's in don't focus on her. Agree with others, great acting, film itself was all over the place.

For the record the Dreyfuss/Danner version originally aired on ABC as a two part miniseries in February 2016. CNBC re-aired it last week.

Could this get Pfeiffer's career back on track?

Nathan Darrow played Andy. Cute.

I didn't know it had aired Saturday so the next airing is Tuesday. I'll watch that one. The trailer goes great.

R23 This right here..

Awesome ending. "Let me ask you a question: Do you think I'm a sociopath?"

Lord, I didn't even recognize Michelle Pfeiffer! Just watching it now so far, so good.

It was quite good. The son who suicided was a particularly strong performance. Pfeiffer and Deniro gave the husband and wife some dimension.

R40, that was Alessandro Nivola. He doesn't get nearly enough attention or work because he is excellent in everything he does.

Loved the scene in which every little detail reeks of opulence as Bernie and Ruth prepare for suicide.

Bernie is portrayed as having a rather flat affect most of the time but then he obsesses about luggage scuffs on a door jam and comports himself as an extremely controlling father even insisting his son eat lobster. I didn't get a good sense of his true personality.

This right here...

Overall, I thought it was good, though not entirely interesting. I thought they portrayed Ruth in a mostly sympathetic manner, though she sounds like was as much of a piece of work as Bernie (at least according to the DIL). The sons were tragic - Bernie never gives them a seat at the table and makes them think it's because they're not good enough, when in fact he just didn't want them to know he was a crook. And then the pleads guilty and has the opportunity to take one for the team - but he fucks them over again and allows them to look complicit in his schemes.

I remember all the fury all this caused (and I"m sure it was worse in NYC) so you could understand the hatred directed at them, but they were clearly dupes in this whole thing even though they were intelligent & accomplished people in their own right.

I thought the ending played the subtext on the top.

I LOVE Michelle, but there was something off about her performance. Her accent kept reminding me of Married to the Mob, too.

Thanks for the link r43. I thought the Dreyfus version told more about Bernie.

Bernie is a sociopathic narcissist who knew exactly what he was doing and thought he would get away with it. There is nothing sympathetic about him.

I watched this film with great interest. My father lost a significant amount of money through Madoff's scheme (via a small investment group) . Not enough to completely RUIN him, as it did others....but enough to where he was freaking out about his golden years, and my inheritance. Wiped out half his net worth. I vividly remember the night he told about it, over a cheeseburger & fries at Mel's Drive-In in Sherman Oaks. He looked like he was going to vomit and/or cry, the whole time.

According to reports, anyone who lost less than 1.2 million got all of their money back, and anyone over that has received 64 cents on the dollar with more still coming in.

Barry Levinson should be banned from directing ever again after shooting a scene with Ruth barely lit and Bernie brightly lit in which Ruth says TWICE, "you are always keeping me in the dark!"

[quote] Could this get Pfeiffer's career back on track?

She's in Darren Aronofsky's "Mother!" and "Murder on the Orient Express". She covered Interview magazine, and Entertainment Weekly is now calling it a Pfeifferssance this week... so we'll see.

I think Ruth should be made to give the victims the $2.5 million she was allowed to keep.

The show did play up how "new money" vulgar the Madoffs were.

That made him more unsympathetic to me than ripping off investors.

I don't think this show, over all, added enough to seem necessary.

Kristen Connolly was great as Nivola's wife.

Nivola was the standout for me. I hope he's remembered at awards time.

Are we going to add Michelle to tough Emmy category .do they include movie and miniseries together?

I think the lineup will be:

Felicity Huffman, American Crime Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies Jessica Lange, Feud Michelle Pfeiffer, The Wizard of Lies Susan Sarandon, Feud Reese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies

Michelle Pfeiffer: WAAAAAAAAY too young for the part.

I like that's you're back to better roles, Bobby, but the vanity (in casting a woman too young) ruins it :(

My mom lost 1/2 her net worth with Madoff. Which was a lot. She worked hard her whole life, made smart decisions and then turned 1/2 of her shit over to this asshole. When she told me all of this I freaked out on her. It was such a dumb dumb thing to do - I still can't get over her lapse of judgement.

Anyway. I truly believe Ruth really didn't have a clue. I grew up in Roslyn Harbor - where they lived when the kids were growing up - and Ruth is like SO MANY of the women from this area. They are wealthy and let their husbands simply go about making their money. They never ask questions because -why should they? They go to the Americana Mall to shop, and do their errands around the town of Roslyn and nothing seems to penetrate their provincial little brains. These are also women who let their mental acuity - whatever there was - just wither on the vine. Most met their husbands in college, like Ruth, and haven't worked a day since in any kind of job or career. More than a few never even went to college.

I go back there a lot to see my mom and she always tells me horror stories of the other people she knows who lost everything - her friend who used to have $3 million but is now living with a daughter in an apartment in Mineola. Or the other friend whose husband died right after and now she is working at Lord & Taylor at the age of 78.

It's all still so depressing. And such a cautionary tale.

Agree about Pfeiffer (sp?) being too young. I just saw the trailer (seeing the movie this afternoon) and I did a double take - It's actually distracting watching Pfeiffer portray a much older woman. She can't capture that in dialogue or mannerisms. So it's distracting.

Upon Image searching Ruth Madoff, the two actresses that come to mind are Holland Taylor and the late Patty Duke.

Patty Duke would have been EPIC in this.

I'm seeing Blythe Danner actually.

Michelle was good, the Queens accent was great. DeNiro looked like Madoff, it was scary how much he resembled him, but he was kind of 'meh'.

As for the people who lost their money, I always wonder about the uber wealthy, don't they ever have enough money? They always want more. It's a game for so many of them. Their greed is the main reason why they lost so much with Madoff. There are reputable investment companies, yet these people seem to always want higher dividends because they're greedy, that's how they end up with unscrupulous creeps like Madoff ripping them off. I don't feel sorry for most of them. Lots of people might have tons of money, yet they don't seem very bright.

^ Just *love* how the victims are blamed

Why not alliterate and title it 'The Lizard of Lies'

I like Blythe Danner for the role too, but I love Michelle Pfeiffer just not in this.

"As for the people who lost their money, I always wonder about the uber wealthy, don't they ever have enough money? "

There were more than a few who were not uber wealthy. Sure they might have had $2 or $3 million in assets - but in this day and age, thats nothing. One friend of my mom's was a teacher in the NYC school system for 30 years and she had more than that just from being frugal (and a great pension). And yeah, there was outright stupidity - but there also naivete. "Bernie" was one of our own. Meaning Jewish. For a lot of people where I grew up, that's all that mattered trust-wise. The thinking was that "one of our own" would never do something like this.

Yet he did.

Uhhhh, Blythe Danner PLAYED THE ROLE ALREADY. On ABC.

r69 I didn't know that I swear. I should have been a casting director. :)

Hah, R70! OK.

And you get extra points for using the term "casting director," not "casting agent."

"There were more than a few who were not uber wealthy. Sure they might have had $2 or $3 million in assets - but in this day and age, thats nothing."

This is utter nonsense, there are people living on much less, most people who have that sort of money and are close to retirement age, can and do live quite comfortably for the rest of their lives. What nonsense saying that $2 or $3 million, is " nothing." That might not be much in NYC, unless you bought something at a very low price a long time ago, a friend bought a huge Soho loft for $25,000 in the late 1970s, but the amounts you mentioned are more than enough, especially if you leave NY or don't have a huge mortgage or do not live beyond your means.

Bernie was a sociopath, it didn't matter to him that his clients were Jewish, like him. He's mentally ill. A lot of Bernie's victims were wealthy celebrities, surely they didn't need to invest large amounts of their money, sorry, in many instances, it definitely was about greed.

Rich people don't live off cash, they live off income from investments, R64, R72. $3 million will produce approx $65K today, hardly a wealthy number.

Why would anyone with half a brain want their principle to be lost? Everyone wants their investments to grow, it's not about "greed." Many times money is old family money held in trusts in the form of stocks and cash and is passed from generation to generation. I live off the income produced by $12m in inherited stocks, and that doesn't make me even slightly wealthy in NYC.

[quote]My mom lost 1/2 her net worth with Madoff. Which was a lot. She worked hard her whole life, made smart decisions and then turned 1/2 of her shit over to this asshole. When she told me all of this I freaked out on her.

You freaked about your mom, not your inheritance?

I was looking forward to seeing this and was left a bit disappointed, despite great performances. It has all the elements of tragedy but the sum is not equal to its parts.

I don't know why they bothered.

Yes, the actors are a definite step up from the ABC version, but the productions didn't really bring anything new that needed to be said or seen.

Is Nathan Darrow gay? Did he get his role in House of Cards from Spacey?

A big disappointment. 1/10.

1. Extremely poor dialogue lending a wooden feel to the acting as in a Movie of the Week production

2. No indepth character development except for De Niro who carries the film. Pfeiffer turns in lackluster performance - badly miscast in her wife role.

3. Superficial treatment i.e, Too much literal focus on chronology of events versus taking an aspect and bringing it out. Zero artistry. Mechanical feel to the production.

The ABC version had more suspense about him being found out, they showed the last night at the Mexican restaurant staff party and it was tense.

Oddly enough, I am friends with both of the actresses who played Bernie's secretary Annette Bongiorno in these films! Both talented and wonderful ladies.

Madoff Movie ‘Wizard Of Lies’ Draws Largest Premiere Viewership For HBO Film In 4 Years

Have DeNiro or Pfeiffer done tv before?

No, De Niro now has a production deal. Critics are now calling for Pfeiffer to do more tv work. Her husband David E Kelly has hit pay dirt with HBO's "Big Little Lies".

Meredith Baxter might have been a good Ruth Madoff.

To those of you who saw this as well as the Richard Dreyfuss 2-part of a couple years back - which was better and why?

What was covered in one that was not covered in the other?

What choices did the actors make (DeNiro and Dreyfuss) and (Danner vs Pfeiffer) that caused you to like one or the other more?

Anything else you care to share.

In the Dreyfus version, Madoff was front and center, everyone else was only given limited attention. It was more of a character study

DeNiro's Madoff was almost a supporting role in his version. A lot more attention given to those around him, Ruth, the sons, the clients. If you truly feel sorry for these "victims" then you'll like this version better.

That clambake beach house party scene was, in all honesty, a vision of hell.

R85--no mention of Bernie's mistress in the HBO version.

Not very much devoted to the son's cancer either. It was portrayed as a devastating diagnosis in the ABC version.

And next to nothing explaining exactly what Madoff's scam was all about and how it started...or how close he came to being caught.

Overall the ABC version was much more comprehensive and engaging. Of course, it had 2 extra hours, but I don't think that was the problem. As others have said, it didn't have a strong point of view. It seemed like there were endless scenes of Ruth smoking and drinking red wine.

Can you elaborate, r87?

Pfeiffer has been submitted in Supporting Actress at the Emmys, which means she should find it easier to get a nomination than the crowded Lead category (though she'll still be up against Judy Davis in Feud, Laura Dern in Big Little Lies and a few other strong contenders). A win is unlikely.

This is really interesting... the entire cast speaks and dishes at 92Y.

The difference between this film and the ABC series is that this film had people who had first-hand knowledge of the Madoffs involved with it unlike the ABC one, which presented Bernie in a nicer way, something that irked critics. HBO presented him as a true sociopath. The author, who plays herself in the HBO film, interviewed Bernie numerous times and speaks to Ruth and knew her sons. ABC was much more of a popcorn fiction film. Very Disney-fied. Blythe looked nothing like Ruth, unlike Michelle in this. It's like they didn't even attempt for the ABC series. I believe the HBO film was filmed before the ABC one, but ABC beat them to airing so HBO held off.

The film was badly structured and had terrible pacing, particularly at the beginning. And as pointed out above, Levinson can be ridiculously literal in his staging/lighting choices.

[R87], MARY!

[quote] ...the ABC one, presented Bernie in a nicer way

I disagree. I never felt that Madoff was presented as nice at all.

Recall the quote from Hamlet

[quote] That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

How long ago was the ABC movie? Is it still available for viewing?

R84 She would've been excellent. She's amazing.

LIke a Hillary Clinton presidential run, this needs a 3RD!!! try and this time, a happy ending where Ruth and the reporter scissor.

Michelle looks palid and zombie-like, lol..

Really, R99? I thought Michelle looked pretty great in the cast-panel video at R91! (and yes, I realize she was sporting extensions)

She's 59. I wished I looked that good NOW.

R100 overall, she looks fantastic but there's something about the color of her skin and teeth.

i saw it last week, i thought it was great. i enjoyed it.

No, R92, I worked as crew on both the ABC and HBO versions and the ABC version was shot first, from late May to late July 2015. The Wizard of Lies was shot from late September to mid November that same year.

Another main difference between the two is Bernie's office was duplicated at ABC Studios in NYC (where The View and All My Children used to be) and the HBO version chose to go in a different direction. The ABC version's office was circular and brightly lit (like the real thing) and the HBO version's office (the set was up in Westchester) was larger and long, not circular.

And the HBO version was, as has been pointed out above, very darkly lit. You can hardly see the extras playing Madoff employees and they rarely interact with Bernie whereas in the ABC version they're prominently featured and seen interacting with Bernie.

YOu can continue streaming this for free at 123movies dot gs

R62 totally agree it would have been epic. Definitely an Emmy award-winning performance.

Fantastic movie!!

Maureen O'Hara would have made a heartbreaking Ruth!