All the Queen's Horses (2017) User Reviews

Interesting little doco

[maccas-56367 · 7/10 · 20 January 2019]

One of my friends is currently serving time in the same prison as Rita, so naturally I was interested in this documentary.

At just 70 minutes in length, it held my attention throughout - especially as the incredible details of Rita's fraud were revealed. Even though the details of white collar crimes can often be a little difficult to comprehend, this documentary explained the fraud in an easy-to-understand way. Don't worry, you don't need to be a CPA!

$53 million stolen over 20 years. That alone is quite a remarkable feat, and at first I couldn't help be impressed at the sheer magnitude of the crime - in a similar way in which I was impressed with the sheer brazenness of Frank Abagnale Jr in 'Catch Me If You Can'. Then the job-cuts, debt, and other cost-cutting impacts on the city of Dixon were revealed - and I fully understood how bad it all was, and the devastating ripple effect of this woman's actions.

I felt the film could've delved deeper into the impact on the every day Dixon resident, while also exploring what (from my perspective) seems like an almost compulsive addiction influencing Rita's behaviour. Her unwillingness to partake in the film no doubt impacted the latter.

It dragged slightly towards the end - but even so, I couldn't help but feel frustration at the massive number of people who failed to do their jobs properly, which would've uncovered Rita's simple frauds early-on. Had they done that, less money would have been embezzled, the city of Dixon would've suffered less and Rita would have already done her time and moved on in life.

Extra Extra Read All About It!

[pjbridges_28 · 8/10 · 13 July 2018]

Embezzling 52 million dollars. A very good documentary.

Very watchable and interesting

[lorrainescura · 8/10 · 11 September 2018]

Glad I watched it. It should probably be required watching for every small town in America. Too easy to steal, apparently.

Well, I was so naive.....

[MovieIQTest · 12 July 2018]

At first when I saw this documentary, I thought this kind of embezzlement fraud could only happened in Communist China or those countries in Africa, or shall I say, it could only have happened in Taiwan, S. Korean, Philippines, or the recent Malaysia. All these Asian countries, their presidents were caught red-handed not during their presidencies or prime ministrations. Such large sum of theft from a small city that went on for twenty years would never be possible in the heart of America, a city where President Reagan was born. Yet it happened by just one greedy city employee, a female!

For twenty years long embezzlement over $53 millions of dollars under a mayor for 16 years and a bunch of city council members, there were like a group of blind people robbed by just one female city employee, a high school graduate. The auditor company never spotted any irregularity of this woman's fake statements, the bank just handled her regular money laundering at large sum of money without even red flagged it.

When the dust of the lawsuit settled, the pathetic city paid over $10 millions dollars for the lawyers, got back about $40 millions back, but the permanent damages to the city were done. We saw so many budget cuts from the what the city should and must have spent.

It saddened me a lot to find out we the regular people, the residents of a city often blindly elected almost all the morons to care for our cities. The woman who discovered the fraud when asked what she felt about it, she said: "I regret not to find out her embezzlements sooner and earlier..."

And this is candid America, and I just read in the news that just over a year, the wealth of the daughter and her husband of our current president has increased over $82 millions, yet I was worried about how was I going to pay my utilities bills this month. God bless America!

Oh..what a tangled web we weave...

[shiannedog · 7/10 · 19 April 2021]

Oh Rita? Such an impressive woman In the show-horse arena. How is someone with so much to lose, able to continue in her nefarious behavior without pulling back on the reigns? Simply amazing! This has to be a kleptomaniac world record. And the lack of detection by the other authorities seems to be the height of dereliction. This story is quite interesting and kept my attention throughout. I only wish the producers could have gotten some interviews from the culprits who ended up paying in the end. It is deeply disturbing that something like this could actually happen. Don't people know that God sees all and has the power to cast them into hell? Good grief!!! Wake up folks.

Should be mandatory viewing by all small city officials

[brian-978-677214 · 10/10 · 11 September 2018]

This was an excellent documentary on how people can totally miss the obvious AND show the greatest of malfeasance. Some comments were made about the poor cinematic effort but that is totally missing the point of the documentary. Forget the camera 'angles' and concentrate on the subject at hand. A person was able to abuse her power for over 20 years and no one caught her in the act until a total fluke exposed the house of cards.

Based on my over 45 years of financial management experience, there were many, many culpable people that should have discovered this much sooner. Good financial management and oversight would have prevented this right from the beginning. The people of the town suffered because of the extremely poor management by the city council. And then on top of that they had a very poor and maybe the worst example of financial oversight by a CPA firm I have ever seen.

As I mentioned, I spent 45 years in senior level financial management assignments and I saw a great deal of insider and criminal activity. This was nothing new, but it did show how stupidity, incompetence, and ignorance aided in taking this to the level it did. People should watch this show for the very reason stated at the end - it is an on going issue and someone somewhere will try it again.

Every Business, City, Partnership and Bank Must Watch & Learn

[rtailor-04901 · 10/10 · 15 September 2021]

We studied this story in a Corruption class of how Rita Crundwell stole over 50 million dollars from her tiny hometown over 20 years. This documentary laid it all out so well though. With the actual people who worked beside her (hat off to coworker Kathe Swanson who discovered the massive theft!) telling the story plain and simple. That is the importance of this documentary. It was so easy for Rita to do this. We all need to learn from this. I really appreciated how this story was told start to finish seamlessly. The selling of the quarter horses was heartbreaking. The actual footage really made this film.

Interesting subject but novice filmmaker

[heathrocksla · 1/10 · 30 July 2018]

I guess this is what happens when everyone thinks they can be a filmmaker. Really crap camera work at points....bad focus, jerky pan shots...reframing a shot mid answer (due to lack of the producers experience). Not sure why this PhD, cpa feels she needs to interject her vanity shots of herself and also her voice...especially just to have the interviewee repeat what she said unmiked. Like I said...it's an interesting story but it comes across as a vanity piece for the producer.

A Winner !

[spam-03479 · 9/10 · 27 August 2018]

I was quite happy to see this film pop up on Netflix and was anxious to view it after remembering the initial breakout of the story on the Internet and never hearing anything further about what happened to the woman. But my girlfriend checked IMDB, read me the review by 'heathrocksla' and we quickly decided to take a pass on it. Oddly enough, the very next day my girlfriend suddenly remembered a hair salon appointment she had made and I was stuck at her place alone with nothing to do, so, I decided to take a chance on the film. And I'm sure glad I did! I kept waiting for the annoying issues that 'heathrocksla' fumed about to show up but they never really did. What unfolded was an excellent documentary, well written, well paced, well researched and most enjoyable to watch. Yes, there was a scene where the subject being interviewed suddenly pushed himself forward in his chair and the camera operator had to refocus, but it was quickly done and the interview continued without incident. And, yes, again, the filmmaker did have a few shots of herself as a 'talking head' but I'm sure after preparing to make the movie she had become a worthwhile, knowledgeable expert on the subject matter, knew what she was talking about and was quite 'easy on the eyes' to boot, so, what's the big deal? In short - All the Queen's Horses is a fine, clear, concise, professionally produced documentary that is well worth your time and energy to watch - Please don't short change it because of one unfair review.

More Red Flags Than a Bullfight

[jamesmahoney · 9/10 · 23 January 2024]

I attended a fraud seminar a few years ago and the instructor said "Every fraud investigation begins in the parking lot. Look at the cars people are driving and you can see who is living beyond their means". This story had more red flags than a bullfight.

This woman owned hundreds of Quarter-horses at a cost of over $250,000 each, a million dollar trailer, a $1.8 million motor home and multiple real estate holdings across the country - all on a municipal clerk's salary while taking off for 4 weeks per year. A freshman accounting student could have figured this out.

The independent auditor dropped the ball by not requiring the city to institute internal controls so a single person did not have the ability to commit fraud and cover it up. Finally the suspect account was reported by the bank on the bank confirmation and no one bothered to follow up to see why millions of dollars was flowing through a single account with checks made out to personal expenses.

This was a failure on the part of everyone involved.

Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

[heidibrideofchrist · 2/10 · 3 July 2021]

I believe about ten percent of the information in this film. After I heard the name Mahoney, it was a downhill slide from there.

Internal controls for the City of Dixon

[judydoody · 8/10 · 26 January 2020]

I saw the movie and enjoyed it, but I have a few questions:

1. Did the City of Dixon have a certified audit of their city performed by a CPA firm? If yes...why wasn't the fraud discovered from the audit? If no...why didn't they have one?

2. Was Rita bonded? If yes...did the City recover any of the stolen funds from the bonding company? If not...WHY NOT? common sense to have people bonded who are entrusted with large amounts of money.