Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Friday Film: Leader of the Anti-Madoff Crusade

What’s left to tell about the Bernie Madoff scandal? Plenty, if you’re Harry Markopoulos, the famed whistleblower whose repeated cries of “fraud” were ignored by everyone from the SEC to the Wall Street Journal. Markopoulos gets his day in “Chasing Madoff,” partly based on his book “No One Would Listen” (and originally titled “The Foxhounds”). But he doesn’t come off much better than his prey in this highly stylized documentary, screening June 5 at the Berkshire International Film Festival.

A self-described crusader who calls Madoff “evil,” Markopoulos seems to relish vamping for the camera as much as he savors telling his story; director Jeff Prosserman pads the film’s 90 minutes with po-faced dramatizations that literalize what we hear in Markopoulos’s clammy voiceover (Harry taps the keyboard to e-mail reporters; Harry looks under his car for a bomb; Harry frenetically faxes documents). In case we miss the point, Prosserman also overlays fake news announcements over vintage newsreel footage to remind us that crime doesn’t pay, whistleblowers get hurt, and the stock market’s unfair.

Suspense does build as the tale comes to its inevitable conclusion — it’s hard not to get sweaty palms with interstitial images of octopus tentacles (get it?), falling rocks, and oozing blood (dramatizing the suicide of feeder-fund hawker Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet). Clangorous percussion, rapid-fire cuts, and neurotic flipping between color and black-and-white also ratchet up the tension even as they drain the film of subtlety.

Madoff’s broken clients, identified by their case numbers only, provide the film’s few genuine moments. We hear of broken dreams, retirements annulled, and careful, lifelong plans destroyed. One tough-guy plaintiff breaks down in tears as his wife watches, helpless. We’ve heard these stories before, but the context gives them terrible new gravity. And as much as it hurts, Prosserman should have woven in more of their voices.

It’s hard to argue with Markopoulos’s righteous anger — he calls Madoff and company “financial terrorists getting away with financial murder” — but the tale would have held more power if Prosserman trusted the audience to connect just a few dots without his help. The only real wallop comes in the film’s final frame, where we learn it’s “dedicated to those who will fall in the next financial crisis.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.