The Laundromat (Netflix/Theaters)

EoinMcLovin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuBRcfe4bSo

Based on Jake Bernstein’s book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite (or, as the trailer puts it, “based on some real ****”), The Laundromat stars Meryl Streep as a widow who investigates a massive insurance-fraud scheme that’s benefiting a network of super-rich people around the world.



The Laundromat will debut in theaters on September 27th, and will arrive on Netflix on October 18th. It’s one of a series of 10 films Netflix will debut in theaters this fall, in an ongoing bid for cinema awards and widespread filmmaking recognition. The film co-stars Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas, with other listed cast members including James Cromwell, Jeffrey Wright, Robert Patrick, Alex Pettyfer, Chris Parnell, and David Schwimmer.

pixelburp

Man, remember when Soderbergh 'retired'? That lasted all of what, five minutes?

Hard not to see the obvious influences going on, at least in the tone of the trailer anyway. Very much trying to riff on the Ocean's 11 'caper' look & feel, mixed with a whackier comedic element. Going by Soderbergh's previous work, if nothing else this should be breezy fun.

Good to see Gary Oldman continuing to expand his repertoire of generic 'foreign' accents

pixelburp

This is out / up on Netflix now BTW, only spotted it yesterday in my listings with little fanfare.

Dades

I watched 45 mins of this on Saturday and gave up. Still had no idea what this was trying to be.

Maybe it picks up in the second half but I wasn't willing to risk it.
Happy to told to revisit if I didn't give this enough time.

ubald.stone

Anyone else watched it?

Captain_Crash

Watched about an hour of it on Saturday, it was ok but didn't keep me too interested. Might finish it this week but we'll see.

saintsaltynuts

I thought it was decent enough.Banderas and Oldman make a good pair.

johnny_ultimate

It's basically The Big Short by way of Contagion, but less interesting and successful than it could be (although I should stress I hated The Big Short). I was on board for the first half hour or so - Soderbergh never makes anything that's less than slick and stylish, and the peculiar, freewheeling tone had me interested despite a clunky fourth-wall breaking gimmick opening. But after than it starts meandering and going off on different tangents. It's several lightly-linked short films, with different aspect ratios and all, despite it initially seeming like it had clear protagonists and characters.

There's some value in bringing dizzying, nonsense financial ****ery down to a human level, but this lands on a point where it simply doesn't land the punches as hard as it could despite a strangely delivered late film transition into fiery anti-capitalist rant. It aims for the right targets, but doesn't actually hit them. The weaker of the two Soderbergh Netflix films this year by quite the margin.

Also: such a shame they ruined what was otherwise a nicely low-key performance from Meryl Streep with a

bizarre, obvious twist that elicits a good old fashioned '****ing yikes'

.