Film Review: Man on the Run (2023) - USA
Tagline: A Scandalous Tango of Greed, Glamour, and Global Fraud
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Rating: 7/10
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
2025 Review Count - 64
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Cassius Michael Kim’s “Man on the Run” opens with a question as absurd as its subject matter: What’s the price tag on rubbing elbows with Leonardo DiCaprio or Kim Kardashian? The answer, according to this frenetic documentary, is roughly $250,000 in cash-stuffed trash bags—a grotesque party favor from Malaysian financier Jho Low, the elusive conman who turned embezzlement into an art form. This is a film that thrives on audacity, charting how Low siphoned billions from Malaysia’s 1MDB fund to bankroll Hollywood bacchanals, bribe politicians, and briefly masquerade as the world’s most profligate socialite. It’s a story so lurid, so operatically greedy, that even Martin Scorsese might balk at its excess—though he unwittingly starred in it.
“Man on the Run” unfolds like a true-crime parody of “The Great Gatsby”, if Gatsby had funneled state funds into yacht parties and Oscar campaigns. Low, a figure so cartoonish he’d feel at home in a Coen brothers caper, schmoozed his way into elite circles by dangling cash and clout. Celebrities became unwitting (or willfully ignorant) accomplices: DiCaprio allegedly accepted artwork financed by stolen millions; Paris Hilton’s former purse-holder, Joey McFarland, morphed into a producer of “The Wolf of Wall Street”, a film ironically funded by the same dirty money it satirizes. The documentary’s sharpest irony lies here: Scorsese’s tale of financial hedonism, starring DiCaprio as a real-life fraudster, was itself a vehicle for fraud. Life doesn’t just imitate art—it launders it.
Kim’s approach is brisk and workmanlike, stitching together rapid-fire interviews, glossy re-enactments, and a torrent of headlines. It’s a familiar template, but the depth of political corruption salvages it from true-crime cliché. The film’s MVP is former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose on-camera squirms are more revealing than any subpoena. Razak, ousted after the scandal, deflects with the grace of a perp-walk participant, while his rival, Anwar Ibrahim (now PM), dissects the rot with surgical precision. Their dueling testimonies expose not just Low’s grift, but the systemic rot enabling it: a kleptocracy cloaked in bureaucracy.
Yet the documentary’s scope inevitably strains its runtime. The tangled web of shell companies, celebrity cameos, and geopolitical fallout occasionally overwhelms, veering into info-dump territory. Editors Jon Connor and Karl Dawson keep the pace sprinting, but the reliance on B-roll (yachts! skyscrapers! stacks of cash!) and re-enactments (shadowy figures in boardrooms) feels like padding for a story better suited to a podcast. The absence of key players—DiCaprio, Kardashian, and Low himself (reportedly yacht-bound near the Arctic)—leaves gaps filled by journalists and prosecutors, who gamely connect dots but lack the tabloid zing of a Hilton anecdote.
What lingers isn’t the glitz, but the grim mechanics of exploitation. “Man on the Run” excels when detailing how Goldman Sachs, fresh off the 2008 crash, pivoted to predatory deals in developing nations, or how Razak’s regime crumbled under the weight of its own avarice. The film’s most chilling revelation isn’t the decadence—it’s the ease with which power shields itself. Low’s scam was comically sloppy, yet it required collusion at every level: bankers, politicians, and yes, celebrities content to pocket six figures for a selfie.
“Man on the Run” isn’t groundbreaking cinema, but it’s a gripping primer on 21st-century graft—a world where fraudsters wield Instagram like a weapon and accountability is as fleeting as a VIP invite. Kim’s documentary earns its rating by balancing salacious detail with sobering context, even if its style leans too heavily on streaming-service tropes. As the credits roll, you’ll marvel at the absurdity—and wonder how long until the Hollywood adaptation. (Neo 2025)