Note: just because a film has three A-listers, does not mean it’s going to be good. Such is the case with the latest Netflix film, The Laundromat, which stars powerhouses, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, and Meryl Streep. I’m not saying the performances were bad. Odd, but not bad. The script was the bad part.
Or maybe I’m dumb and it was just confusing for me. Either way, I was a little sad I spent an hour and a half of my life waiting for something to come together that just never did. Oldman and Banderas serve as narrators, Mossack and Fonseca, for most of the film, where they loosely explain laws, shell companies, and credit. They did an alright job explaining this is an odd fashion that seemed to be stealing (but poorly) from The Big Short.
Interspersed, were stories involving these shell companies gone wrong, all to make our narrators millions of dollars. It was as simple as signatures on hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper. But the stories all seemed disjointed. At the start of the film you meet Ellen (Meryl Streep), who is trying to get to the insurers who couldn’t cover the drowning of her husband and 20 other people. It was quite a compelling story, but then it was almost altogether abandoned. Her story tied a few small pieces together, but ultimately nothing really flowed.
That is what was highly disappointing. It also seemed unnecessary to stretch this subject into a full length feature film. Sure, there were some layers involved, but nothing like the complexities explored in The Big Short. And the outcome was also disappointing. We learn that Mossack and Fonseca only spent a few months in jail. I suppose it had its potential, but came up really short.