Stars! Definitely stars! Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman and Adam Driver and Antonio Banderas and Annette Bening. If there is something depressing about the films about current political scandals Amazon and Netflix are launching at the moment, then it's the belief in stars. That only they can tell us the stories behind the Panama Papers or the Feinstein Report, which revealed the CIA's torture methods under US President George W. Bush.
Steven Soderbergh opens in "The Money Laundering" (since October 18 on Netflix) Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas to once again generate interest for and above all outrage over the extensive business with letterbox companies in the Caribbean, with the Panama papers were uncovered.
"The Report" (theatrical release November 7, then from November 29 on Amazon Prime) by Scott Z. Burns relies on Adam Driver, so that the years of filing, which has led to the Feinstein report, charged with his charisma to the cinema experience , (Annette Bening as Senator Dianne Feinstein is available as silk scarf-bearing bonus material)
"Only for the money"
Curiously enough, Burns wrote the screenplays for both films, leaving Soderbergh with the more spectacular. "Money laundering" is a fast-paced farce from Florida, where Meryl Streep's character implicates Ellen in a tragic insurance case, across China and Mexico to the Caribbean, where Oldman and Banderas are enjoying themselves as Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca - the law team, the Panama City has overseen the creation of more than 300,000 letterbox companies.
Mossack Fonseca are also guilty of "money laundering" because Ellen does not get paid. The nesting of corporate structures leads to the dissolution of responsibilities, so that the company, which should compensate for Ellen goes bankrupt - even though it has always paid its policies in time.
In the video: The trailer for "The money laundering"
Netflix
How this can be, staged Soderbergh as a smear show: In silk bathrobe and cocktail glasses in the hand lead Oldman and Banderas by the absurdities of international tax law. "Did we mention that we do everything for the money?", Oldman / Mossack asks in between.
Of course, this is reminiscent of "The Big Short", Adam McKay's surprise success of 2015 on the background of the financial crisis, in his powerfully suave and honorable mission. The film was then a grim partial victory in the fight against financial capitalism: After all, the cinema had wrested the crisis an extremely entertaining comedy with Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale.
McKay could not repeat the drive of "The Big Short" even with "Vice" (2018). With "The Money Laundering" gets the effort of this staging mesh (Einspieler! Animations! Even more stars in supporting roles!) Now something bad. Does it really need so much frippery and Budenzauber, in the end but only a righteous plea for more tax justice to deliver?
An american icon
Perhaps Scott Z. Burns has done well to make "The Report" for his second feature film directorial work. The quiet political drama relies much more on his material, and this trust is also transmitted to the audience: It will all have its meaning, if Adam Driver as Senate employee Dan Jones can be locked in a cellar office every day for years to there everything To evaluate material that is one of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of the CIA.
Indeed, Dan Jones has been producing a report for years on behalf of Dianne Feinstein, chair of the US Senate Intelligence Committee from 2009 to 2015. He appeared on December 13, 2012, and gave the most accurate accounts of the CIA's crimes in their secret prisons - waterboarding, sleep deprivation, direct physical abuse, and psychoterrorism. Thereafter, the use of Feinstein and Senator John McCain issued a legal ban on these "interrogation techniques".
In the video: The trailer for "The Report"
DCM
Although "The Report" thus ends in a concrete political measure, in contrast to "The Money Laundering", the film still lasts longer in the present. Because one of the CIA superiors, who was called torture at the time, is now the CIA chief: Gina Haspel. Her name does not fall in the film for legal reasons, but Maura Tierny looks similar enough that no misunderstandings can arise.
The fact that someone like her could continue to make a career, stresses "The Report", is also largely due to the willingness of Barack Obama to compromise. In the name of reconciliation and impartiality, he prevented a lasting elucidation of the scandal.
At the end of "The Money Laundering" styled Meryl Streep by all manner of costumes to the Statue of Liberty, probably the oldest American icon. At the end of "The Report" one of the younger American icons is damaged: Obama.
