Dirty Money (2018)

Though there is a clear political agenda, there’s no Michael Moore figure shambling through it. There's just a crisp series of facts and figures spliced with bewildered interviewees. ... Although I know the world can seem a bleak enough place without sitting down at night to face the hard truths in a docuseries like Dirty Money, I guarantee viewers will emerge feeling more sharply aware of how the systems around us operate.

“Dirty Money” episodes tend to function as cleanly produced explainers, recounting chapters from the recent past while nodding to their ramifications in the present. Whenever the show has an opportunity to roust itself from the more clinical on-camera interviews and chart firsthand some of these aftereffects, there’s a sharper final product.

Television producers sometimes get a little too hung up on consistency of tone or style, to the point where idiosyncrasy gets flattened out. That’s definitely not the case here. In addition to all the clearly explained practical information this series provides, it also illustrates some of the wildly different but equally valid ways in which filmmakers can tell a story that entertains from start to finish without trivializing the series’ important mission.

A fascinating and frequently enraging new documentary series on Netflix that tackles capitalism run amok.

The result is a showcase for six skilled directors, and if the series gave me plenty of reasons to despair for the future of the country, it also made me very optimistic about the future of documentary television.

Dirty Money is the sort of tough investigative journalism that, for a big media company, represents more risk than upside. It’s worth rooting for, and watching.

Each segment, all of which premiere Friday, is an entertaining yet informative mini-doc, chock full of research, interviews and artful interstitials.