I wasn’t honestly expecting much from this – in fact when I started I wondered if I would actually see it through to the end but it turned out to be far more interesting and thoughtful than I had thought. I did, vaguely, recall, the titular character but it turned out that he in fact was a mere public cog in a far more wide-ranging fraud that brought down a government.
Throughout the images of the main players, politicians and celebrities alike puzzled me by their rather grotesque cartoonish quality. However, I soon realized that this was an effective way of mocking the people involved; we knew what the people looked like in real life but here the image was reflection of the sort of corrupt and ridiculous people that they were that ran this fraud, of, in the case of the Hollywood elite, allowed themselves to be used.
As the story started to unfold there were some unnecessary documentary-style visual clichés used – a first-rate investigative journalist, when starting her work and talking about the possible dangers was shown walking in dark deserted streets, occasionally turning round and with an eerie soundtrack, but fortunately this was soon discontinued and they focused on telling the story.
As the story unfolded, I was stunned and appalled by its scope – and the fact that, as made clear at the very end, that the real losers were the Malaysian people. The whole scam was initially set up, ostensibly, as massive hugely beneficial infrastructure projects were going to be created which would help everyone and, as one Malay said at the end, might allow the country to move from ‘developing’ to ‘developed’ status. As it turned out the sole physical evidence seemed to be vast sets of luxury flats and apartments – once again benefiting only those who already had much.
Jho Low turned out to be merely the (foolish, too-public face of the scam and was really only a bit player; the major –layers/guilty parties were the financial global elite, from Governments downwards. Again, Goldman Sachs came out badly and with little effective punishment for their misdeeds. If you can afford fines in the billions…
A fine documentary – and in the closing shots, the list of those who were majorly involved or who bene fitted from this scam was very, depressingly but wholly expectedly extensive.