I thought it was good, definitely the best work I've seen from Bobby D. in quite some time. The thing is he's always going to be DeNiro playing DeNiro. Unlike someone like a Susan Sarandon who became Bette Davis in Feud. DeNiro is like Bogart in that regardless of the role, Bogey was always Bogey. Sarandon's buddy; Michelle Pfiefer, at times, looked incredible and did some good work also.
DeNiro being DeNiro now is certainly the case but earlier in his career he gave some truly transformative performances: Travis Bickle and Jake LaMotta are two off the top of my head, but, yeah, now he just mails it in. DeNiro is still a better actor than Bogart ever was.
I had to laugh, at one point he's arguing with his son, the son says "I don't know". DeNiro answers with a "No, you don't, no you don't". He sounded EXACTLY like he did in Goodfellas when he's got Marty by the throat; "I want my money to-day, to-day, to-day!".
You really don't want to go there. Anyone who has seen Treasure of Siera Madre, Caine Mutiny, Knock On Any Door, Maltese Falcon, etc, etc wouldn't say that. And now back to "Wizard of Lies".
Just watched it, it's a very good movie on it's own, IMO. But what always bothers me with this types of movies is how they chose a famous actor with such a great charisma and charm to play someone, who, at least by what I saw from some real footage and photos, visually looks as disgusting as what he did - Madoff played by De Niro looks charming, noble, sympathetic, and even spiritual, if a bit confused person, that makes you honestly feel sad for him and his fate. Not sure if the real person is near this image (never knew any details about him in real life).
I felt that he did a good job of slowly morphing from a fairly low-keyed pleasant fellow into the creap we ultimatley discovered he was. I didn't see too much charisma. But as Godshifter said above, De Niro is always gonna be De Niro.
Actually I stand corrected - just browsed some footage/photos of the real Madoff, and the visual difference is not so big (previously I saw some bad quality interview of his, and he looked very unpleasant, fat self content ugly fellow). But on all other photos I saw he looks similar to the image De Niro creates, and obviously he had enough personal charm to hook so many people. Anyway, a nice movie, IMO, and the very final scene/words is quite powerful, IMO. It's like he's saying - I'm not a sociopath, I'm just one of the many of my kind, and what I did is not exclusive or uncommon (at least this is how I understand it).
I liked it. DeNiro's performance was effective and struck a nice balance. What I could not figure out was why Madoff went so wrong. He had it made and yet blew it all destroying himself, his family and hundreds (or thousands) of other families financially.
Honestly, the end scene where the question is raised as to whether or not he was a sociopath really left me thinking. For whatever reason, I've never associated 'white collar' crime with psychosis. Guess I thought these guys are too smart to be crazy! For me, the only explanation for Madoff's criminal behavior has to be that he's Looney Tunes!
Being a sociopath has nothing to do with psychosis. It's a personality disorder. It's not being insane or "looney tunes" as you put it.
Madoff was definitely a sociopath. He cared not one iota about anyone. All he cared about was keeping his secret. And, I believe most "white collar" criminals are sociopaths. They use their intellect to fool others.
