https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/arts/television/dirty-money-netflix-the-confidence-man-donald-j-trump-review.html
Review: ‘The Confidence Man’ Finds Trump’s Business Image Was Made for TV
The Confidence Man
By JAMES PONIEWOZIK | JAN. 25, 2018
“The Confidence Man,” a swift, brutal overview of Mr. Trump’s business career, argues that he had been doing the same thing with his image for decades: He wasn’t a business titan so much as he played one on TV.
The film, directed by Fisher Stevens (“Bright Lights”), is the last episode of a six-part anthology, “Dirty Money,” from the filmmaker Alex Gibney (“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”), arriving Friday. The installments range from an infuriating look at payday lending to an offbeat story about Canadian maple syrup cartels.
The common thread is the abuse of trust. And “The Confidence Man” argues that the problem goes all the way to the top.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/dirty-money-review-netflix/551819/
The Epic Grift of Dirty Money
Netflix’s new six-part documentary series is an enthralling take on cons and corporate malfeasance, from money laundering for cartels to the Trump Organization.
Sophie Gilbert 10:00 AM ET
Stevens’s look at Trump’s empire is different. Not because the tactics are distinct (Trump University is portrayed as its own, particularly noxious kind of scam on impoverished people with dreams of wealth), or because the Trump Organization hasn’t operated in similarly gray (or even black) ethical areas. Rather, Stevens argues, it’s because Trump’s confidence trick doesn’t involve condos, or steaks, or airlines, or casinos.
The con is Trump himself. For the last five decades, he’s sold himself as something he’s not: a billionaire many times over, a swaggering lothario, a casino magnate, a tycoon. After disastrous bankruptcies in the 1990s, Stevens notes, Trump’s businesses went quiet. Trump merely participated in the pageantry of his role as America’s most unblushing magnate, filming a Pizza Hut ad with his ex-wife Ivana in 1995 and a McDonald’s spot with Grimace in 2002.
Before the premiere of The Apprentice in 2004, the journalist Timothy O’Brien observes in the episode, Trump was mostly sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. That show, “The Confidence Man” argues, pulled off the greatest con of all when it persuaded large swathes of the American public that Trump was a titan of industry and a genius dealmaker rather than a simple forerunner to Kim Kardashian. Stevens interviews two Apprentice producers who reveal how much of the show was a false construction, including the Trump Organization set, which was built because the real office was too shabby, too small, and smelled funky. The series was a hit, though, and Trump’s brand was renewed.
Dirty Money makes a convincing case that without The Apprentice, President Trump would never have happened. But his presidency also seems to encapsulate a phenomenon the six documentaries are trying to unpack, where, given enough status and a requisite lack of shame, moral and financial bankruptcy can be shaken off in an instant. The quest for capital goes on, ad infinitum. Sporadic adjustments (the conviction of Scott Tucker, the tanking of Valeant) are momentary blips rather than paradigm shifts. When it comes to money, some companies—and some people—are just too much to contain.
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