the laundromat - movie review blog - maldeegan.com/blog
“When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin begins investigating a fake insurance policy.”
The laundromat is a difficult movie to like. From the very opening scene we are introduced to Mossack and Fonsacca, the duo owners of the law firm 'mossack fonsaca' famously embroiled in the Panama papers. Wearing dinner suits and preening for the camera like pantomime puppets I had the sinking feeling that I wasn't going to like this movie very much.
Gary Oldman hamming it up a storm with an over exaggerated German accent that becomes irritating very quickly is counterparted with Antonio Baderas (who incidentally fares better in the acting stakes) to treat the audience like morons as they explain bartering and the invention of money.
In this, one of many irritating, pretentious scenes makes for difficult viewing. Utilising a similar technique by The big short where Mossack and Fonsaca are our narrators into a world of greed and corruption. Stephen Soderberg has chosen to make a semi comedic and semi serious movie that is scattershot and ultimately uningaging. The story of the Panama papers and Mossack Fonsaca deserved better. It treats them almost as afterthoughts, demeaning the impact and lessening the seriousness of greed and corruption.
In short vignettes sprawling across the globe, the central character played by Meryl Streep, fails to have an insurance claim honoured after her husband is horrifically drowned in a boating accident. She sets out to investigate realising to her horror that the insurance company doesn't exist and is only a Shell company with a Po box listed in Panama.
From here the movie goes all over the place undoubtedly trying to mirror the Panama papers where it appeared that tax avoidance was rampant across the globe facilitated by greedy lawyers and bankers who honour only the almighty dollar. We travel to Nevis, China, Panama, Nevada and even briefly Mexico in a failed attempt to insinuate that drug lords got in on the act as well.
It's this scattershot approach that makes the whole movie feel disposable as we don't really know any of the characters and the link between the stories are tenuous.
By the time the Panama papers are released the movie has warn thin. Like it's preening narrators with their sparkling dinner jackets and false demeanor it's all surface and no substance. Despite a final rally by Meryl Streep with an impassioned call to arms in a fight to change tax laws in any meaningful way, it feels strangely tacked on.
With noble intentions and a story that truly needs to be told maybe now more than ever with greed and corruption still at all time high, the laundromat unfortunately isn't that movie. It's a pale photocopy and what's worse is it dances around the subject, treating it lightly like it's narrators, all sparkle and no depth.
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