The war stories of the famed financier Carl C. Icahn power this deft documentary portrait.
To the uninitiated, the term activist investor can sound as if a shareholder is out on Wall Street with a picket sign and a cause. Carl C. Icahn, an activist investor par excellence, is a veteran of what the practice actually entails: buying a stake in a company and pushing for changes in management or strategy. Above all, as the genial documentary portrait “Icahn: The Restless Billionaire” explains, he’s dauntingly good at making money.
The octogenarian Icahn anchors this deft pocket biography, with his appealing directness and dead-level stare, as he presides at the office and around the house. The Queens-raised son of a cantor and a teacher, Icahn has for decades targeted firms like Tappan, Texaco and Apple, while seeking out undervalued stocks.
The director, Bruce David Klein, smartly builds out Icahn’s war stories in terms of problem solving and negotiation, not mere bets. Icahn’s triumphs, as well as his past tangles with the Transport Workers Union and the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, create ready-made drama, while visits with his family (and a wizardly synthesizer score) keep up a sunny vibe.
But even for Icahn, a respected headline-maker who has taken the Giving Pledge, the profile can be a little soft. It blurs comparisons to corporate raiders in its rote account of the 1980s. The talking-head commentary is dominated by finance journalists (including Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times) and millionaires, without always clarifying Icahn’s financial maneuvers (or his political ones, such as his service under Donald Trump as a special adviser).
The perspective — while producing something eminently watchable — may strike some viewers as old-fashioned and incomplete.
Icahn: The Restless Billionaire
Not rated. Running time 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on HBO Max.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
