Stephen Soderbergh is back to his stylish, fast-paced flair with The Laundromat, which touts itself as being “based on actual secrets.” Those secrets are the Panama Papers, millions of leaked documents dating back to the 1970s that revealed thousands of illegal offshore accounts.
But as dry as that news may have seemed when it broke in 2015, Soderbergh is giving the Panama Papers the Big Short-style treatment, with Oldman and Banderas’ smarmy corrupt lawyers revealing how they pulled it all off, and would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for a meddling Meryl Streep. Streep stars as a woman who, after tragedy strikes, begins investigating a fake insurance policy and finds a globe-spanning web of deceit and questionable dealings all linked to a Panama City law firm.
Jeffrey Wright, Melissa Rauch, Jeff Michalski, Jane Morris, Robert Patrick, David Schwimmer, Cristela Alonzo, Larry Clarke, Will Forte, Chris Parnell, Nonso Anozie, Larry Wilmore, Jessica Allain, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Matthias Schoenaerts, Rosalind Chao, Kunjue Li, Ming Lo, James Cromwell, and Sharon Stone also star in The Laundromat, which is written by Scott Z. Burns and based on Jake Bernstein’s book “Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite.”
Here is the synopsis for The Laundromat:
When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin (Academy Award winner Meryl Streep) begins investigating a fake insurance policy, only to find herself down a rabbit hole of questionable dealings that can be linked to a Panama City law firm and its vested interest in helping the world’s wealthiest citizens amass even larger fortunes. The charming — and very well-dressed — founding partners Jürgen Mossack (Academy Award winner Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Golden Globe nominee Antonio Banderas) are experts in the seductive ways shell companies and offshore accounts help the rich and powerful prosper. They are about to show us that Ellen’s predicament only hints at the tax evasion, bribery and other illicit absurdities that the super wealthy indulge in to support the world’s corrupt financial system.
The Laundromat opens in select theaters on September 27, 2019 and on Netflix on October 18, 2019.