Steve
Madden is a self-styled rock & roll, youth-culture shoe designer. That was
all hip and fun when it involved clubbing and partying, but not so much when he
was sentenced to thirty-one months in prison for SEC violations. Unfortunately,
he was the biggest name attached to the Wolf
of Wall Street case. Yet, Madden would mount a massive comeback for his
eponymous brand after his release. It is an inherently dramatic story, but Ben
Patterson makes it sound like bland corporate puffery in Maddman: The Steve Madden Story (trailer here), which releases
today on VOD.
Madden
grew up in a hard-working Long Island community, largely representing the Madden
family’s college drop-out black sheep. However, he discovered he had a knack
for selling shoes. Working his way from the stock room to the sales floor, from
a neighborhood store on the Island to a swanky Manhattan boutique, Madden found
his calling. He started his own company with $1,100, building it up to a
fashion juggernaut, facing up to his alcohol addiction along the way. It was a
spotless Horatio Alger story, except for the fact Jordan Belfort’s Stratton
Oakmont brokerage house handled Madden’s IPO. As a result, Madden’s finances
became problematically intertwined with those of Belfort’s company.
You
could argue Madden was grossly over-prosecuted, but that could potentially
involve taking a controversial position, so Patterson sticks with a hazy
Steve-was-done-wrong position, while divulging precious few details on the
actual legal case (which naturally makes us curious). Whenever Madden teeters
on the brink of honest self-examination, Patterson promptly cuts away to
another former cellmate or company employee to tell us how great a guy he is.
Granted,
Madden is a charismatic figure, but his supremely confident bluster gets old
after the first forty-five minutes or so. It is also too bad Patterson couldn’t
find at least one anti-Madden fashion critic to serve as the skeleton at the
feast. Instead, the film is all Steve Madden, all the time.
