Netflix Crime True Story Scandal Reminds You Life Isn’t Fair

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh may be best known for his work behind the fan-favorite Ocean’s trilogy, but if you haven’t caught The Laundromat, you’re missing out on one of the director’s finest pieces of work. The movie is based on Jake Bernstein’s book, Secrecy World, which dived into the true story of the Panama Papers scandal. Shaping it for feature-length form was no simple task, but Soderbergh, along with Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) who penned the adaptation, had plenty of help with an incredible lineup of talent. 

So, exactly which stars can you expect to catch a glimpse of in The Laundromat? The film includes performances by Hollywood icons including Meryl Streep, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Matthias Schoenaerts, David Schwimmer, James Cromwell, and Robert Patrick – not too shabby.

While we won’t go into too much detail, so as to not give anything away, The Laundromat is broken into three different stories that all revolve around the unethical and illegal practices carried out by the law firm, Mossack Fonseca. Each chapter serves as a cautionary tale with Meryl Streep reappearing at the end to remind viewers that what they saw is completely true and that there are still instances of similar things happening around the world today.

Following a successful run at 2019’s film festival circuit, The Laundromat celebrated a limited theatrical release that September before dropping on Netflix a month later. For the most part, critics and audiences were pretty split on how they felt about the film, with some enjoying the project being chopped into three separate perspectives and others feeling that this made a mess of the story. Soderbergh and Burns certainly caught most of the flak, the critics had largely only positive things to say about the A-list cast of talent.

Soderbergh also earned some bad press after it was pointed out that one of Meryl Streep’s characters had the star performing in brownface as a Panamanian woman. While something like this could’ve ended another filmmaker’s career, that certainly didn’t happen for Soderbergh who continues to be an in-business director since The Laundromat, having recently released such titles as Magic Mike’s Last Dance and Kimi, with his psychological thriller, Presence, due out later this year.

So, while you head into the weekend, if you’ve already binged the new docuseries, American Nightmare, and have caught the award-favorite Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, take in some top-tier acting in Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat now on Netflix.