Review: The Laundromat on Netflix
Steven Soderbergh’s new movie about the Panama Papers.
Steven Soderbergh’s new movie about the Panama Papers.
For a man who “retired’ in 2013, Steven Soderbergh has been rather prolific. Maybe golf just isn’t his jam?
Whatever you may think of his oeuvre, Soderbergh has never been a boring filmmaker. His new Netflix movie, The Laundromat, is a few things, but boring isn’t among them.
Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns have collaborated a few times before on equally heady subjects so tackling the Panama Papers is certainly in their wheelhouse.
Burns’ script is based on the book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein.
The Laundromat is certainly a much catchier title.
Toplined by Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas, the film is peppered with A-List cameo’s.
To be fair, I’d watch Steven Soderbergh direct a still photograph. He makes interesting choices. Always. And Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman are two of the best actors of any generation. Again, always interesting. Scott Z. Burns is a very effective writer — so all the ingredients are there.
To re-cap, The Laundromat has:
A Great Director
A Great Screenwriter
A Great cast
Great source material
A topical and relevant subject
So, what could go wrong?
The good news is nothing. The bad news? Well, the same as the good news… nothing.
It’s an interesting film to be sure. It takes a step-by-step approach to money laundering and helps the non-financial people understand it a little better. If you’re interested…and you should be.
It paints the problem as a global one…which it is.
Oldman and Banderas represent Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, respectively. These two men were the sacrificial faces of the Panama Papers and owners of the Panamanian law firm Mossack & Fonseca. The firm where 95% of the work consisted of “selling vehicles to avoid taxes”, according to the 2016 leak that became the Panama Papers. Admittedly, not a thrilling subject.
But the cameos are fun to see. So…there’s that.
Using Meryl Streep’s characters’ personal loss as the through-line, Oldman and Banderas break the fourth wall to walk the viewer through the basics of money laundering. That type of narrative device, addressing the audience directly, is not always great. But, The Big Short proved it could be done with good effect. And it’s done well here too.
The Laundromat just seems forcefully contrived and a little too punchy in its delivery. It’s cheeky. And I just don’t think the topic of rich people and corporations burying their money in shell corporations to avoid lawsuits and taxes is a topic that should be cheeky.
The subject doesn’t need to be Terms of Endearment or The Godfather but it’s not an amusing topic to those of us who do pay taxes and don’t operate in that 1% world. It’s an infuriating topic. Also, probably not a good time to announce that the Director has five shell corporations and the writer has one…true or false, it further illustrates the chasm between “them and us”.
But the film does do a fine job of keeping you engaged as the leads attempt to explain the arcane methodology of money laundering.
The last few minutes as the three principles (Streep, Oldman and Banderas) address the viewer and wander off and on to the sound-stage is a shitty conceit. I get it, maybe they’re trying to bring it home and say “this is real life folks.” If so, a real big swing and miss on that.
So the film ends with Streep walking through the sound-stage, shedding her character and morphing back into herself as she delivers a pseudo call to arms. The scene as teeth, but no bite.
Soderbergh may have been better off inserting the Mel Gibson motivational speech from Braveheart…but then there is all that Gibson baggage, copyrights, etc.
The cheeky approach of The Laundromat just left me with the very modern feeling of “So what? What can I do about it?” The message of the Panama Papers, and the film, reinforce the Trumpian idea of “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”
I’m not so sure that is the best message for these times.
I might expect this sort of approach and delivery from a film student but not the people involved here.
The Laundromat tells you to forget what you’ve heard, the meek won’t inherit the earth…get over it.
While he hasn’t always made great creative choices, they’ve always been interesting ones. Within the Steven Soderbergh oeuvre, The Laundromat is an interesting movie…but that’s about all that can be said about it.
And the last image of Meryl Streep? Seriously? Just awful.