Ellen E Jones 

Man on the Run review – fine documentary about a starstruck Malaysian financial scandal

Cassius Michael Kim’s film tells the story of the man who financed Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street with billions of dollars allegedly stolen from Malaysia’s poorest people
  
  

Leonardo DiCaprio standing next to Malaysian fugitive businessman Jho Low at the 2013 premiere of the film The Wolf of Wall Street
‘A Great Gatsby figure’: Jho Low, right, with Leonardo DiCaprio at the 2013 premiere of The Wolf of Wall Street. Getty Images Photograph: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images

Leonardo DiCaprio should get a supporting actor credit, so often is he namechecked in Cassius Michael Kim’s deft documentary about the brazen 1MDB Malaysian state fund scandal. Top billing goes to Jho Low, a Great Gatsby figure who, in cahoots with Goldman Sachs bankers and Malaysia’s former PM, is accused of swindling the country’s poorest out of some $1.42bn and is now on the run. He spent the money sucking up to Hollywood A-listers with lavish gifts and funding for the DiCaprio-starring movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Apt, since this documentary shares Scorsese’s theme of obscene greed, while Kuala Lumpur’s neon nightscape gives the feel of a Batman villain’s origin story. The Penguin, probably.

Watch a trailer for Man on the Run.
 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*