An entertaining but incomplete lowdown of a larcenous tale so far-fetched that it seems the stuff of fiction.
What does an Oscar-nominated film featuring Hollywood A-Listers about a corrupt investment banker have to do with the downfall of the Prime Minister of Malaysia at the polls? Quite a bit, it seems. The Kleptocrats traces the bizarre threads that weave a tale of a vast and protracted saga of corruption and venality. In its centre, there is the enigmatic Jho Low, a rotund and shiny-faced billionaire financier and party animal whose bacchanal parties are the stuff of legend in the well-heeled Hollywood set. With Najib’s involvement, Jho Low embezzled billions of dollars from the Malaysian state-owned investment fund, 1MDB, and used the money to finance film studios and throw lavish Vegas parties. But corruption on such a large scale soon attracted inevitable attention from investigative journalists and law enforcement agencies, which soon discovered the rot and set to taking down Jho Low and his cronies. On the other side of the world, the Malaysian body politic rose up against the breathtaking venality of Najib and, led by the phoenix-like Mahathir, ousted him from power.
It’s quite the story, and there is a sort of filmic quality to it that will undoubtedly one day lend itself to a smashing fictional adaptation. The documentary pulls in as much information as was available at the time of production, to construct as complete a picture as possible – one that takes in both the viewpoints of investigative journalists, civil organisers on the streets of KL, and even Najib’s brother, who says all the right things on camera. All these perspectives together paint a fascinating and disquieting portrait of the depth to which human greed is capable of descending.
But at its core, The Kleptocrats doesn’t have the full picture, since the story is live. Najib and 1MDB are still undergoing investigation, and it is unclear what exactly their role in all this was, only how they benefited – and benefit they did, to the tune of $300 million in seized assets. Jho Low, himself, is still at large – said to be traveling in style around China – and we can only guess as to the source of his voracity. Is it a greed borne out of ambition? Inadequacy? The need to be loved and respected? These motivations remain a mystery. And what of the celebrities that benefited from the money of Jho Low – Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese? Did they knowingly take dirty money, or were they strung along too, like everyone else, not questioning the source of Low’s largesse?
The documentary provides suppositions, but in the absence of evidence, they constitute winks and nudges and an attempt to paint a certain narrative. And like everything of this ilk, the viewer must exercise caution not to go down a certain conceptual frame prematurely, before the jury is out beyond the walls of the documentary.
Nonetheless, The Kleptocrats is a compelling chronicle, one that truly basks in the overwhelming drama of it subject matter. Perhaps an example of the Shakespearean lyricism of the tale: the documentary compares Jho Low to Jordan Belfort, the high-living, coke-snorting, protagonist of The Wolf of Wall Street, a film that Low himself financed. One wonders what Low must have thought when he saw the film for himself. Did he see himself in Belfort? Did he take heed of the films’ denouement? Or did he think to himself that he was different, and king of his own private empire of parties and people that were drawn to him by the universal currency of wealth?
I give this: 4 out of 5 bottles of Dom Perignon
Binary Café 