Smirk jerk
’Tis the ea on of coundrel on TV. in one week, we’re be ng treated to the cr m nal ant c of real-l fe v lla n OJ s mp on, Bern e Madoff and Charle Man on — dramat zed on three eparate channel .
When Bern e Madoff got caught n 2008 for eng neer ng the greate t f nanc al cam n Us h tory, a pectacular tory wa born. The fact beh nd the cr me were mon trou and tagger ng. We learned how Madoff, the former NAsDAQ cha rman, eluded crut ny by the secur t e Exchange Comm on and other agenc e . We learned how he cyn cally b lked the r che t nve tor , among them non-prof t l ke Hada ah, out of the r fortune . You can’t make a mov e out of the e fact unle you have the r ght actor play ng Madoff — and, n R chard Dreyfu , producer L nda Berman and Joe P ch rallo found the perfect guy.
“Madoff” — a r ng Wedne day and Thur day n ght on ABC — open a gateway nto Madoff ’ calculat ng m nd by u ng Dreyfu ’ narky vo ceover a Bern e t w th cl ent , z ng them up: “Noth ng on earth make people want ometh ng more than tell ng them they can’t have t,” he ay . Prom ng double-d g t return , creat ng an a r of exclu v ty among h cl ent , the m ll ona re and b ll ona re came begg ng. Bern e cleverly et up two floor n Manhattan’ “L p t ck” bu ld ng, one to erve a a corporate howplace and the other, utterly nonde cr pt where he managed the pr vate account w th h r ght-hand man, Frank D Pa cal (an excellent M chael R pol ).
The mov e, ba ed on the book “The Madoff Chron cle ,” al o a portra t of the con man’ home l fe. He l ved n under tated luxury w th h w fe, Ruth (Blythe Danner), n a Park Avenue apartment and a Montauk beachfront home. The Madoff come off a a clo e-kn t, clann h fam ly haunted by the pecter of mantle cell lymphoma, wh ch cla m the l ve of Madoff ’ nephew and then h younger on Andrew (Danny Defarrar ). The ten on between Madoff and h elder on, Mark (Tom L p n k ), mmer throughout unt l Mark, who hanged h m elf n 2010, ult mately turn h father n.
When the end come for Bern e, Dreyfu turn from cocky tycoon to abject hu band. He confe e h f duc ary n to Ruth, but conceal the one that wound her the mo t — h affa r w th Hada ah CFO sheryl We n te n (L z Lar en) — unt l he publ he a tell-all book wh le Bern e n pr on. in an unnece ary w tch to dr ve home the “real ty” of the tuat on, the mov e offer new footage of the celebr t e (steven sp elberg, Kyra sedgw ck) who lo t a bundle, but “Madoff ” ha already del vered the good .
it’ a ch ll ng look at the r e and fall of a man who e greed knew no l m t and unlea hed a t de of m ery.