The Laundromat is an American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh about the Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm's international scandal in April-May 2016.
In 2015, an anonymous source inside the Panamanian company Mossack Fonseca sent many financial documents to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Journalists got data on 214,488 offshore companies for the period from 1977 to 2015. The 2,6 TB archive contained 11,5 million files. It took almost a year for journalists from 115 publications in 80 countries to analyze the entire amount of data received. On April 3, 2016, the results of the investigation were published. The names of current and former heads of government of different countries of the world, prime ministers, members of royal families, relatives, and children of heads of state were found in the papers. The scandal turned out to be serious.
Steven Soderbergh decided to make a film in the spirit of The Big Short, which told about the global economic crisis of 2008 but seems to have overdone it in the process.
The Laundromat is full of first and second magnitude stars: Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Jeffrey Wright, David Schwimmer, Matthias Schoenaerts, James Cromwell, and Sharon Stone.
Meryl Streep plays the fictional character Ellen Martin, who is trying to understand the world of offshore business after her husband's tragic death. Still, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas play the roles of the very real Jurgen Mossak and Ramon Fonseca, Mossack Fonseca owners. Concurrently, Mossack, and Fonseca play the role of storytellers, explaining to viewers the principles of their company and the nuances of creating offshore companies.
In the second part of the film, you will puzzle yourself over who starred in one minor's role but a fundamental character for this story. His secret will be revealed only before the final credits.
As a result, Steven Soderbergh's film looks like a black comedy with elements of political satire.