This film is about loopholes in tax law in the United States and how certain individuals in the know are able to take advantage of them while us peons are stuck simply living day-to-day and getting raked over the coals by the government.
The film has an all-star cast and it is presented in a manor where the people in the film routinely break the 4th wall, eventually ending a lecture or two on the part of ever-preachy Meryl Streep.
I have mixed feelings about this one: One one side I do love a good ol' expose about the evils that exist in the political-elite areas of this world but on the other side I am kind of sick of Hollywood types, who are almost certainly engaging in exactly this sort of thing, being all preachy to us about "why aren't you changing this?"
However, this film does point out some pretty shady dealings that happen in the USA financial world that isn't really surprising when you consider that the rich have always had certain privileges that the rest of us can't have and that is how it is always going to be, unfortunately.
Although it focuses on multiple stories, most of them are at least in part tied in to Ellen Martin (Streep) and how she is pursuing a settlement in the wrongful death case with her husband. Her stubborn attitude takes her to multiple locations where the various underwriters are meant to hold offices offshore. When she arrives at those places she finds no office but just post offices. It is at this point that Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas pop up on screen to do a "talk to the audience" sequence and explain what shell companies are.
These segments are informative but after a while Oldman's fake German accent actually starts to get on my nerves. He plays Jürgen Mossack, who was German born, so i suppose it was necessary.
The entire film is loosely based on actual events that took place during the "Panama Papers" scandal which is something that is still going on today. The two characters that Banderas and Oldman play in the film are real people and they actually sued Netflix for defamation of character (lost) and also filed and injunction to have the release of this film blocked (also lost that one.)
from the official Neflix
I found this movie entertaining and informative because like you would expect, the Panama Papers thing was successfully swept under the rug almost certainly because the truly powerful people that exist in the world are probably all a part of it. Maybe they can do Epstein next (They are probably too worried about getting suicided.)
My reaction to knowing this information is a bit bittersweet because while it is nice to know the dirty secrets of the financial underworld, it's not like i can do anything about it and since I don't make enough money to ever be part of this club, the knowledge of its existence is more depressing than anything else. I dunno, maybe a lot of people will watch it and demand action so that a politician that is bribed by the very people this movie describes can lie to us about how he / she is going to put a stop to it.
Overall I would say this movie was OK, but the way that the 4th wall is constantly breached actually becomes a bit tiresome after a while. If you want a truly entertaining film about the horrible nature of the financial "secret club" i think you should watch The Big Short instead.