The story of master stock manipulator Bernie Madoff, Robert De Niro, and how he swindled thousands of those who invested their money into his hedge fund shows just how those in government in charge of protecting people's money in the stock market were asleep on the job and let him get away with it more then how smart Bernie was in, until he got caught, pulling it all off. As for Bernie he made no attempt to excuse himself in what he did but took full responsibility for his actions. Which in fact lead to him now inmate as #61727054 ending up with a 150 year sentence behind bars and both his sons Mark & Andrew, Alessandro Nivola & Nathan Darrow, dead-Mark by suicide and Andrew from cancer- within the next ten years after he was arrested. It was in fact Bernie's long suffering wife Ruth, Michelle Pfeiffer, who suffered the most from her husband's crimes losing both her sons her high life style favorite hairdresser and friends, whom Bernie had stiffed out of their life savings, as well as husband, whom she hasn't talked to in years, and is now living quietly with her sister in Florida with only her social secrecy check , between $800.00 to $1,200.00 a month, to survive and pay her bills with.
It was the stock market crash of September 15, 2008 that brought an end to Bernie Madoff's secret Ponzi Scheme that resulted in the staggering 64.5 billion dollar loss that was invested in it to go missing with Bernie left holding the bag. With him having nothing to cover his thousands of investors, including holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and L.A Dodgers pitching star Sandy Koufax, losses Bernie's career as a stock market wizard came to a crashing end together with his two to three billion dollars in savings. We see Bernie going through a number weird hallucinations-asleep as well as awake-in him being haunted by those whom he ripped off in his Ponzi racket that destroyed their lives. In everything that Bernie was accused of doing in the movie the one that ticked him off and he really resented was being compared-by a NY Times writer- to serial murderer Ted Bundy who killed as many as 50 to 100 women saying that of all the things he did in his life he never killed anyone! Yet his actions caused over a dozen of his victims to end up killing themselves!
It's hard to work up any sympathy for Bernie since all that happened to him and his family members whom he more then anyone else ended up screwing was of his own doing. Not that Bernie also had a good side to him in giving thousands if not millions to charitable causes but that was only a fraction of the money that he stiffed out of his clueless, in not knowing what his motives were, investors. Now left alone in his eight by ten cell in a North Carolina minimum security prison Bernie is teaching fellow inmates economics as well as how to avoid smooth talking shysters and snake oil salesmen like himself from doing business with them and their savings.
It was the stock market crash of September 15, 2008 that brought an end to Bernie Madoff's secret Ponzi Scheme that resulted in the staggering 64.5 billion dollar loss that was invested in it to go missing with Bernie left holding the bag. With him having nothing to cover his thousands of investors, including holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and L.A Dodgers pitching star Sandy Koufax, losses Bernie's career as a stock market wizard came to a crashing end together with his two to three billion dollars in savings. We see Bernie going through a number weird hallucinations-asleep as well as awake-in him being haunted by those whom he ripped off in his Ponzi racket that destroyed their lives. In everything that Bernie was accused of doing in the movie the one that ticked him off and he really resented was being compared-by a NY Times writer- to serial murderer Ted Bundy who killed as many as 50 to 100 women saying that of all the things he did in his life he never killed anyone! Yet his actions caused over a dozen of his victims to end up killing themselves!
It's hard to work up any sympathy for Bernie since all that happened to him and his family members whom he more then anyone else ended up screwing was of his own doing. Not that Bernie also had a good side to him in giving thousands if not millions to charitable causes but that was only a fraction of the money that he stiffed out of his clueless, in not knowing what his motives were, investors. Now left alone in his eight by ten cell in a North Carolina minimum security prison Bernie is teaching fellow inmates economics as well as how to avoid smooth talking shysters and snake oil salesmen like himself from doing business with them and their savings.