Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal (2021)
An examination that goes beyond the celebrity-driven headlines and dives into the methods used by Rick Singer, the man at the center of the shocking 2019 college admissions scandal, to persuade his wealthy clients to cheat an educational system already designed to benefit the privileged.
- Chris Smith
- Jon Karmen
Rating: 6.9/10 by 133 users
Alternative Title:
校园蓝调行动：美国大学招生丑闻 - CN
Country:
United States of America
Language:
English
Runtime: 01 hour 40 minutes
Budget: $0
Revenue: $0
Plot Keyword: money laundering, scandal, reenactment, college admission, academic cheating
If you've read the news articles about this story, there's not much that this film will reveal to you. Mostly an inoffensive dramatization of what's already been reported. One thing I did take issue with is the way that the piece basically promoted tracking down and searching for the defendants -- it felt like for every single parent, they had a shot of someone typing in their name into Google and looking at some images. Kinda weird.
I guess this is a good character study of some variation of a psychopath, who lies, cheats, throw people under the bus — whatever it takes to advance their own interests. And the movie provides a peek into how the wealthy care about having the best of everything and knowing they can throw money at any problem to solve them. Of course, none of these people are presented in a way to make you root for them in any way, so in the end though I thought it was marginally interesting, I thought it was way too long.
