The first trailer is here for Steven Soderbergh‘s latest collaboration with Netflix. Having already released one film on the platform this year – his iPhone-shot NBA lockout drama High Flying Bird – the proficient filmmaker is back with a second. This one is The Laundromat, a comedy-drama based on the real-life Panama Papers scandal.
In 2015, millions of documents related to one law firm handling more than 200,000 offshore accounts were leaked to the press, and many celebrities were linked to the scandal. Offshore business entities are legal, but reporters found that some of the shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud and tax evasion.
Meryl Streep stars as a widow who investigates the the injustices (interestingly, the real whistle blower is still unknown as of now). Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas are two high-profile lawyers keeping these money laundering schemes afloat.
But if this sounds like some hard-nosed, All The President’s Men sort of film, watch the trailer below and see that Soderbergh is instead channeling comedies like Burn After Reading and his own The Informant!
This is an interesting way to tackle a serious subject (“Based on some real shit”) but Soderbergh has consistently proven that he can balance comedy and drama in unique, unexpected ways.
And with a stacked cast that also includes David Schwimmer, Jeffrey Wright, Will Forte, Matthias Schoenaerts, Larry Wilmore and Sharon Stone, The Laundromat has every chance to be another great addition to Soderbergh’s already eclectic oeuvre.
Scott Z. Burns adapted Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Bernstein‘s 2017 novel Secrecy World: Inside The Panama Papers Investigation Of Illicit Money Networks And The Global Elite for the film. The movie will play in select cinemas from Friday, September 27, before hitting Netflix on Friday, October 18.
#Peace.Love.TheLaundromat
