When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin (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 larger fortunes. Founding partners Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas) are experts in the seductive ways shell companies and offshore acco... (Full plot summary below)
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When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin (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 larger fortunes. Founding partners Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (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. Zipping through a kaleidoscope of detours in China, Mexico, Africa (via Los Angeles) and the Caribbean en route to 2016's Panama Papers publication - where journalists leaked the secret, encrypted documents of Mossack Fonseca's high-profile patrons - THE LAUNDROMAT's ensemble cast includes 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, with James Cromwell and Sharon Stone.
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| New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinA broad agitprop comedy written by Scott Z. Burns that’s labored in parts but is, as a whole, sensationally valuable. |
| TimeStephanie ZacharekMuch of the movie is bitterly funny; some of it just amusingly droll. But the finale, a rallying cry that’s both galvanizing and wistful, is a wrap-up worth waiting for. |
| The GuardianXan BrooksThe film’s prize asset ... is Meryl Streep. |
| Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangThe movie is both a lesson and a diversion, a movie that seeks to educate by means of trickery and misdirection. It is thus best approached as a kind of cinematic shell game, in which the focus of the story keeps shifting and the full scope of the corruption on display remains just out of view. |
| Rolling StoneDavid FearThe Laundromat ends on a pre-credits image that feels destined to become a meme. Everyone’s hands are dirty, it tells us. Maybe it’s time hold folks accountable and clean up our act. |
| VarietyOwen GleibermanThe Laundromat is Soderbergh at his most playful, and also Soderbergh at his most wonkish, and damned, in this case, if the two don’t chime together. |
| ReelViewsJames BerardinelliThe Laundromat uses a format not unlike that of "The Big Short" (without Margot Robbie in a bubble bath) to shine the light on the kinds of activities uncovered by The Panama Papers. |
| Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSoderbergh and Burns remain exceptionally well-matched collaborators. They’re after just enough human interest to make us care, and just enough socioeconomic outrage to make us seethe — some of us, anyway. |
| The Film StageRory O'ConnorThe Laundromat is an air-tight, tumultuous info-graph about our rotten to the core financial systems and, in particular, the 2016 Mossack and Fonseca leak, when millions of the Panamanian law firm’s files were anonymously leaked to the press. |
| The PlaylistJessica KiangComparisons to Adam McKay‘s “The Big Short” and “Vice” are unavoidable. But though The Laundromat is similarly breezy, unsubtle, and disposable—it is not, we’d wager, one of the Soderbergh films that will best stand the test of time—it is still a better movie. |
