Reviews
The Atlantic Review
” … {the film] doesn’t try to either understand or humanize Madoff, but all the same it manages to be an intimate, unsettling portrait of a borderline sociopath.”
Read the full review here.
New York Times Review, HBO‘s “Wizard of Lies”
“The film returns repeatedly to Ms. Henriques, calmly grilling her subject, pushing him not just to recount the facts of his crime — something he’s unusually willing to do — but also to accept that he hurt his clients and family.”
Read the full review here.
Boston Globe Review
In those bleak scenes (in which Henriques plays herself), you sense that he has a phenomenal sense of denial
Read the full review here.
Reuters Review
“This was betrayal on a Shakespearean scale,” said Henriques, who plays herself in the film. “When someone comes forward who has so flagrantly violated the trust of those who loved him, I think we all feel shaken by that.”
Read the full review here.
Huffington Post Review
“Could Robert De Niro top an already amazing career? By Thursday, another brilliant performance premiered at MoMA: As Bernie Madoff in the HBO movie, The Wizard of Lies, he is the consummate con artist.”
Read the full review here.
Orlando Sentinel Review
He and De Niro never sentimentalize Madoff, who talks matter-of-factly about making up investments, then complains that the people he hoodwinked were greedy.
Read the full review here.
Town and Country Magazine on HBO’s Wizard of Lies
“The most interesting thing here,” De Niro says, “is the family dynamic.” Levinson agrees. “You want to know who he was, who she was, and the relationship between them, because if you can humanize them you can better understand,” he says. “If you use the family to show what the man is like, you begin to see how he functions in the outside world. He was a full-time con artist, in private and in public.”
Read the full article here.
W Magazine “Wizard of Lies” Review
Jenny Comita in W Magazine:
“Let me ask you a question,” Madoff says to Henriques, who scored the first jailhouse sit-down with Madoff and plays herself onscreen. “Do you think I’m a sociopath?” Does he really need to ask?
The Baltimore Sun Reviews HBO‘s “The Wizard of Lies”
“From daring direction by Barry Levinson, to De Niro’s mesmerizing performance as disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, “The Wizard of Lies,” is another grand-slam docudrama from TV’s premier cable channel.”
David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun gave “The Wizard of Lies” on HBO a rave review. Read the full article here.
The New York Times Book Review
“Riveting reading. . . . [Henriques] probably knows more than anyone outside the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission about the mechanics of the fraud. As a consequence, in The Wizard of Lies she is able to add significant detail to the story. . . . In the end the story holds us not because of the engrossing details of the scam, but because of the human dimension.”