Unraveled

Bolstered by animated re-enactments and Bob Richman's frosty cinematography, Unraveled is a mesmerizing one-man dive into narcissism, entitlement and unchecked greed.

Marc H. Simon's documentary has the thrust of a great American noir or black comedy.

The fascinating human portrait that emerges should draw appreciative if limited audiences.

If Simon's hands-off approach precludes a thorough stock-taking of Dreier's misdeeds - numbers alone hardly tell the full story - the movie's subject obligingly avails himself of the ample rope.

It's a fascinating fishbowl in concept, yet Simon's storytelling is unevenly textured and oddly listless - fatal for a film about a banal document - pushing felon clock-watching to a known outcome.

In allowing Dreier to shape his own narrative, too many lame excuses are allowed to pass, as the financial schemer spins his own story dangerously close to self-pity.