Hollywood Con Queen Reviews A Truly Boring Journey Through An Amazing Scam | Television and radio

HHollywood finds no subject more fascinating than Hollywood. He turned inward almost from the beginning of the film industry. The good stuff continues from Sunset Boulevard and Singin in the Rain, but there's a lot of bloated dross.

To the second pile, we must add the three hours of Hollywood Con Queen, the story of a scam which could be told in 60 minutes, instead of the 180 allocated. A big scam, to be sure, involving the impersonation of many studio heads, but a scam nonetheless, operating on the same principles as all the others we have witnessed in life or as viewers of TV shows. real crimes.

For 10 years or more, according to this documentary, Hargobind Tahilramani targeted freelance actors, makeup artists, photographers and others in the entertainment industry by posing as powerful women. These included Amy Pascal, then co-chairman of Sony Pictures, art collector and entrepreneur Wendi Deng Murdoch, and Sherry Lansing, then CEO of Paramounts. He convinced his victims to donate thousands of dollars for acting and gymnastics classes, or fork out expenses that were never reimbursed for speculative trips (usually to Indonesia, originally from Tahilramani) for nonexistent projects.

The first hour is devoted to the testimonies of the victims. All say they were victims of financial fraud and suffered intrusion and psychological manipulation (Amy Pascal, or one of the woman's supposed assistants, called at all hours with additional instructions and demands). ). In some cases, they have also been victims of sexual harassment, allowing themselves to be lured into telephone sex. Most then realized something was wrong and extricated themselves from the scam. Those with whom Tahilramani did not go as far tended to lose more money, but emerged less psychologically scarred.

Their experiences are described in great detail, it feels like every phone call, every blocked number, and every shudder of apprehension is noted, which does their suffering a disservice, as it numbs us with boredom. I assume this was done, if only for simple filler purposes, because the people featured represent only a tiny proportion of the more than 500 people Tahilramani allegedly exploited, or to avoid accusations of lewdness by giving unequal weight to sexual aspects. But throwing everything at us doesn't work either.

The series is based on journalist Scott Johnson's book, The Con Queen of Hollywood: The Hunt for an Evil Genius, which grew out of his articles about the conman who would eventually be revealed as Tamilramani, sitting in the middle of an intricate web of interactions. who reached, can you believe it! beyond California.

Johnson walks us through his research, but the filmmakers' efforts to convince us that private detective Nicole Kotisianas is not the star of the story fail. She spent three years obsessively following the Instagram account of Tamilramani (who was then living in the UK and trying to establish himself as an influencer), even after gathering enough evidence to convince the FBI that he should take the relay (and, reportedly, after distributing large doses of therapy to many Tamilramani victims).

The second hour details the investigations, but spins the wheels a bit to save all the big stuff for the final hour. This includes Johnson's phone and video interviews with Tamilramani; an account from his sister of her brother's volatility from his childhood and life of crime, undiverted by time spent in prison and mental institutions; and his eventual arrest for impersonation fraud in Hollywood.

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It's a more interesting hour, but it still feels bloated and self-indulgent. We see so many images of Tamilramani being self-pitying, self-justifying, narcissistic, reporting bipolar disorder and a troubled past, that it's easy to draw our own conclusions about him that do not differ much, I suppose, from those of Johnson. He offers no more information than that Tamilramani has a sadistic streak and was in it as much for fun as money, otherwise the scam was too elaborate to be worth it.

Tamilramani is currently in the United Kingdom fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces a number of charges.

The series feels like a very long journey from the team behind Fyre and Tiger King, from which one would expect more, to a place close and familiar.