Though it's cast and presented like a Brat Pack movie, indeed "Billionaire Boys Club" is a true story, the very epitome of 80s excess: rich boys, lots of money, fancy cars, big-haired women, high living and, of course, murder. The madness, the fashion, the music, it's all here. This is also a rare contemporary miniseries. In fact, the trials in this case did not start until 1987 when this aired. Therefore, we can dispense with hoop skirts and naval khakis, Southern drawls and Biblical epics. Hell, even slumming movie stars aren't necessary. Just the facts themselves, and a lot of 80s glitz are all we need to tell this true-life humdinger of a tale.
(This is a true story, so I'm using character names, but the movie has changed some of them for either dramatic or legal purposes, so some are not actually real-life names.)
The movie starts at the trial, giving us no background yet, but it's a great idea. In the middle of Dean Karny's (Brian McNamara) testimony, names are bandied about, a to-do list for a crime scene is read aloud. What does it all mean? "It's a recipe for murder," the district attorney says.
With the credits, we get a musical soundtrack heavy on the keyboard and the saxophone, pure 80s tackiness. Then it's back to court, where Eric Fairmount (Raphael Sbarge) is on the stand. He gives us the history of the Billionaire Boys Club, or BBC as they called it. Rich kids from Los Angeles were invited into a business with Joe Hunt (Judd Nelson), "the youngest person in the country to get a CPA." Dean, Eric and his brother Chris (Frederic Lehne) go to a swinging 80s club where everyone is dancing with their arms in wacky clothing full of bright colors. Joe knows how to sell his organization for "guys who, frankly, want to start at the top." He promises the whole thing is "risk free," and goes on to explain the financials. He feeds them hokum about running afoul of the Mafia and a "Middle Eastern cartel" with a theory that "black is white and white is black." Not understanding any of this? That's the point. Joe is a flim-flam artist. Talk fast and drop names and numbers, seems to be the way he works. "I believe that rich hungry is tough hungry," he tells a potential investor to the delight of his three new friends. He's full of platitudes like that, which always sound impressive but may not have any real meaning.
Chis and Eric go to their father (James Karen), who gives his tacit approval, though Chris' girlfriend Judy (Gail O'Grady) is a bit skeptical. Chris and Eric spend their inheritance propping up the BBC, but they believe it's all going to turn into piles of money eventually. Also part of the BBC are Bob Holmby (John Dye), Todd Melbourne (Barry Tubb), Toby Kabek (Robert Krantz) and Brad Sedgwick (John Stockwell), so we have a veritable Rogue's Gallery of 80s supporting players all present. "Joe mesmerized everybody. He was our age, but you'd never know. He impressed everybody," Eric says in court, emphasizing that when he was in school with all of these guys, they all though of him as a nerd "with no money." "Joe had this trick of finding your needs and meeting them," he testifies, making Joe sound like every con artist or hooker.
Eric testifies about the "test" Joe gave to all the guys. He brings them into his office and asks, "if you could be absolutely sure you would never get caught, would you kill someone for a million dollars?" The test continues with other questions along those lines, finding out the breaking points of each guy. It's quite masterful. Joe even has a rule that "it's okay to lie as long as you know the truth and it's good for the BBC."
When it's decided the BBC needs a "look," the rich boys want Joe restyled, so a classic MTV-style montage follows. Bad song, bad editing, tacky, headache-inducing. Damn, do I miss the 80s!
Joe has found a computer chip manufacturer that he wants to exploit, the hook for finding investors. He's calling the process this man has "microgenesis." Basically, it boils down to a Ponzi scam, having to find a way to lure investors with the promise of money in the future that is nowhere near set. Only Chris seems to wonder if Joe's big talk is all a bunch of hokum. The others are too blind to see it, though the movie makes it obvious he's all about empty speeches. Taking everyone to the movies, he gives them a massive revelation afterward: "You know why I like movies? Because they ARE reality. It's a perfect example of the way paradox philosophy works..." Oh, what is the movie? "Rambo." Yeah, Joe manages to spin "Rambo" into something so inspiring that it takes not only the walk to dinner, but dinner itself to get the guys to turn their thinking once again to his motto of "winning is everything." He equates Rambo's war to their business dealings.
Enter the victim, a "con man, a real scammer," in Dean's words, Ron Levin (Ron Silver). Joe keeps Ron to himself at first, until it's time to spring the scientific marvel on him. Ron makes Joe look like an amateur. With some of the guys assembled at his mansion, his maid conveniently comes in to tell him the police commissioner is on the phone, "to make sure you got Muhammad Ali for the children's benefit like you promised." Joe's eyes are wide with awe, not realizing he's being played far worse than he's playing. Ron doesn't immediately sign on, and investments in the BBC are low. Joe wants the guys to continue soaking "friends and family" for money.
Ron invites the BBC boys to his tennis club (where he's wearing a suit all of 80s white and of course doesn't play tennis). They all show up in their fancy cars and fancy tennis duds, meant to impress. They all look incredibly pretentious and immature, but only they don't realize it. Outconing the con, Ron strings Joe along, though Joe claims not to trust Ron, "which is why it's going to work," he tells his pals.
After Eric plays witness to Joe jumping from a 25-foot roof into an 8-foot pool, which is apparently so impressive it ranks up there with turning water into wine or inventing fake vomit, Eric's faith is shattered because Joe tells him the commodities in which he's invested tanked with the stock market and Eric is now broke. "What can we do to get it back?" Eric asks. "I'm impressed. You're responding by focusing from a different perspective, instead of finding fault and accusing, that's great! You're a stud," Joe announces, dazzling Eric with that grand piece of malarkey, even promising to make him part of the inner inner circle, though he reneges on that a few days later. Once again, it's Eric's brother Chris who finds all of this a bit hard to swallow, referring to Eric as "Joe's parrot" when Eric dumps a Joe-like speech on him about the lost money. They argue, but Eric has drank the Kool-Aid and Chris has no room to argue.
And just when things look their worst, in swoops Ron Levin with a $5 million commodities account that grows into $14 million in seven weeks. "Everything Joe said would come true had come true," Dean testifies. The boys run to spend the money on apartments, cars and anything that even has a hint of excess. They find every blonde bimbo in LA with crimped hair and wow them with money stories not one of them even pretend to understand. Only Chris and Judy are skeptical, and she because she can poke holes in his philosophies, having actually studied what he blabs. Joe realizes Chris could be a problem and pushes him out of the office to work from a separate lab, out of his hair.
"He said the experiment was over," the commodities broker tells Joe. Apparently, it was "only an experiment" on Ron's part and the money was never real! Joe tells Dean that he will "continue to see Levin because it's our only chance to get any money out of him...or kill him."
Exactly how Ron was able to do this is even more audacious than anything Joe ever fantasized. Ron had told the commodities broker that he was doing a documentary and this was all an experiment, that the guys playing with the account don't know it's not real, but will of course be told. And the broker buys it! As for Joe, even though he knows he's been destroyed, continues to bilk the investors and the other guys with phony profit statements. Joe tells Dean that he technically turned that money, which was never there, into tons more, "and I can do it again." Semi-privately (the token female character is in the room), Joe launches into a tirade of hate and self-delusion, not to mention spectacular ego.
However, Joe keeps Ron close. He gets Ron to admit that though he faked the whole thing, there was a paper trail, which he took to another broker and got $1.5 million for. Oh, man, that's good! He even promises the BBC kids a slice of that. "It was a stall," Dean testifies. You don't say!
There is only one more very important character to meet, security guard Booker (Stan Shaw), "a former Mr. Universe" and "black belt in karate," among other bad-ass titles that label him instantly as the muscle. Joe takes to Booker quickly and has Booker teach the boys karate. If this sounds utterly ridiculous given the cast, try watching it. "With his body and my brains, we are the ultimate man," Joe tells his guys, who can't understand Booker's presence. Now, let's be honest, Stan Shaw is an imposing man, but by 1987 was a bit past his his prime. One assumes he could be outrun quite easily. However, it's really his knowledge of guns that is most impressive. Eric testifies to being confused about just what Stan and his being there were all about.
A problem arises with the car importing side of their business. The cars cannot be certified and then are mysteriously shot up. "You don't shoot up the labs; you fix the cars!" Eric says when Chris comes to him with the story, but Chris knows for sure. Hell, the fatigues worn are still sitting in the lab! Joe, of course, denies the story when Eric brings it to him. "You know how Chris is--dumb. You're working up here because you're twice as smart. Chris is working down in the warehouse doing grunt work and he knows that because he is jealous and because he doesn't like me. You know that," Joe tells Eric, who believes everything he says and agrees to keep in posted on any rumors of the sort that fly around. "Loyalty to the BBC comes first," Joe said. Eric is so brainwashed, down to the empty eyes that follow Joe anywhere.
Dean returns from a business trip and finds Joe in his office writing a murder to-do list. Joe doesn't try to hide it from him at all. He testifies that he knew then Ron Levin was going to be murdered, but he couldn't call the police because "I was a part of it." Joe has a whopper of a plan, down to corporate seals, hole punchers and Booker pretending to be a mob informant. There are a slew of contingency plans too. And it's all planned for June 6, D Day.
The alibi is that Dean is supposed to be at the movies with Joe. Dean actually went to the movies, saw Joe when he got home and then was awoken by Joe the next morning with the chipper news that, "we did it, Ron Levin is dead" and then figures of money he bullied out of him. Joe then describes it all. Joe brought dinner, Stan arrived and Ron bought the whole Booker-as-mob-enforcer story. Ron agreed to the money, but Booker made a mistake, which Joe considers too big to leave Ron alive, so he had Booker shoot him. Joe so calmly describes how they took the body away, what they did to make the body "unrecognizable" and how "with one of the shots, Levin's brain jumped out of his skull and landed on his chest. It was neat, in a weird way." Booker was sent to NYC to check into a hotel with Ron's credit card to make it seem like Ron was in NYC.
Unfortunately, using the credit cards proved to be a mistake because the cards were maxed out, so Booker bolted with any evidence, was caught and arrested. They smooth that over, but there's another problem: Ron Levin's check is rubber. This sends Joe over the edge into a crying fit. "He scammed me twice!" he blubbers to his girlfriend Amy (Jill Schoelen), "they'll laugh at me, they'll really laugh."
When Eric asks why the office is a ghost town, Joe, once again calmly, admits to killing Ron Levin. "Eric, Brad, Amy, Kabek, Todd, Holmby, me, Booker and Joe," are the names of the people Dean says he and Joe decided to trust with the full truth. With all of them assembled, Joe goes into a gigantic speech about how he and Booker killed Ron as protection of their company, etc. He reminds everyone of the "test" he gave them, "and I passed the test and you are all now a part of it. There comes a time when everyone must pass that line if they are to achieve their dreams." He's still working the ego route, even with a murder involved! He also notes that if anyone blabs, "he will end up in the East River."
Holmby testifies that he felt Joe was still a role model, some tripe about an eagle bringing back food (Levin's money) to his brood. In fact, he wasn't sure if a crime had been committed or if Joe was simply bragging again. Eric has his doubts and commits them to a tape recorder because he doesn't know what to believe, but if it's true, he doesn't want to get anyone else in trouble.
Chris was not involved in the meeting, but he's soon told of it (and not by his brother), the first time someone outside of the meeting was informed. Chris goes to his father with the news. His father only wants to protect his sons, so calls in an attorney. The lawyer tells them there is no crime, because there is no body. However, if they can prove he is dead, they need more of the meeting attendees to turn on Joe. As for the police, Ron Levin's father reports him missing and the police already have a file going on him, but carp, "con men end up dead all the time" and don't take it very seriously.
With "morale really bad," Joe somehow gets a huge amount of cash and throws a gigantic party with all the trappings, including fancy motorcycles for everyone. To another ear-splitting sax montage, the guys, in tuxedos, go cruising around LA on their new bikes. At the party is Masud Nabodi (Robert Hallak), a wealthy Iranian who wants to invest in the BBC. He seems like the perfect new cash influx because his father is worth tens of millions that Masud wants. The problem is that Masud and his father hate each other, so, as Dean testifies, they would have to kidnap the father, make him sign over his fortune to his son and then kill him. He's almost as calm as Joe would be about it. They even have a motive, blame the Iranian government because Masud's father is an enemy of the Ayatollah.
The first part ends with Brad (who is the only one, along with Chris, working to bring Joe down), "feeling out" Joe to find cracks in the story. "No one will ever find the body. It was the perfect crime," Joe smirks. Yeah, that and every other perfect crime.
Dean is back on the stand, testifying to the planned murder of Masud's father, "because we need the money." That's how warped not only Joe had become, but his minions because they were so brainwashed by Joe's ego and his rousing rah-rah talks that always manage to make even more dewy-eyed. This new murder is planned with even more detail than the last, down to the catnip suggested to keep the body from stinking. Poor Dean has to go to a sex shop where an ancient woman sells him handcuffs and a gag, along with buying a trunk for the body.
At the same time, Brad and Chris try their best to find out anything they can from Eric, but he tows the line, and Chris pushes it awfully far. Why? "It's all I got." And that's Joe's ace, the same we've learned about every cult leader in history: fine the lonely and the sad and make them feel special. But remember, Eric has his doubts, in secret, that he tells his tape recorder.
As Todd, Booker and Joe are about to pull off the second murder with the help of Masud and Dean, the police finally start to take Chris and Brad's claims seriously, going a little too fast because they have no evidence. Luckily, Eric finally tells them what happened at the meeting, that Joe confessed to murdering Ron Levin. Dim Eric is thrilled to know he's not alone with this knowledge. "That moment with Chris was the greatest...the greatest day of my life," he testifies, his face gleeful, but the sentiment sad.
Joe and company do indeed kidnap Masud's father as planned (to wild electric guitar riffing). The only deviation from the plans was Todd washing his hands, which Joe says "is demonstrative of some kind of weakness." To get Masud's father from San Francisco to Los Angeles, they hire a rental truck, having Masud stay in town to make things look normal. The kidnapped man howls nearly the whole trip and Dean gets sickened, but finally the screams stop. Dean decides to "punch air holes in the top so he could breathe," which no doubt Joe would be unhappy to hear. But the noises start again, so Dean puts tape over the holes. Joe would be pissed at this show of emotion and steps outside of the plan. Back and forth they go with the covering and uncovering of the holes. Realizing the tail lights on the rental are not working, Joe says they have to move the body back to his truck so as not to risk being stopped and searched.
Dean is forced to open the trunk to see if Masud's father is still breathing, as all noises had stopped. Because he sees "his stomach moving up and down" and some "drooling," he "took that to mean he was still alive." Some time goes by and Dean goes back again, to check for a pulse. "I found no pulse, no breath," realizing the movements he saw before were from the bouncing of the truck, deciding the man has to be dead. Joe orders mouth-to-mouth, but Dean disobeys. "Damn," is all Joe says. "I guess we blew it," Dean nervously answers.
The only thing that seems to worry Joe is that Booker will find out what happened. So, he decides that Booker must be kept from the truth until he can reconstruct a new plan "to get what we want." In his thinking, they can draw up the papers giving Masud control of his father's assets, which they were always going to do, but now they just have to forge his signature instead of getting him to actually sign it. Plus, Masud's father had been threatened with death by many others, so not only would suspicion not only fall on them, but they don't have to destroy the body. So, at Joe's insistence, they take the body to the same place they took Ron Levin's body. As for the evidence, "we just threw it out the window...or at various dumpsters," Dean testifies.
Yes, I know, even a casual Agatha Christie fan can see all of the holes, all of the places where half-decent police work can find the killers. But does Joe know that? His confidence is his Achilles heel, always has been.
As for the other plotters, Chris and Brad need to figure out who else in the BBC they can trust. Eric is worried because if they choose incorrectly, "bang bang" he says, using his fingers as a mock gun. And he knows only the half of it. Literally! "Let us worry about the defectors," they tell him, urging him to continue as normal and dig up any evidence he can.
Actually, Joe is still supremely confident, overly cocky. He tells Eric he calls Ron Levin's machine every day and leaves a message. "So, when the police find out..." Eric says, pretending to be amazed. "IF they police find out," Joe corrects him, with a big smile. There is some business about forging Ron Levin's signature that ends in Eric being forced, with Dean and Joe watching, to forge Ron's signature, which Brad and Chris worry can be used against him.
In the dealings of Masud's father, they unfortunately find only closed bank accounts, though the FBI is being brought in to investigate his disappearance because they suspect "terrorists," which makes Booker giggle...truly, like a seven-year-old girl. Joe has Holmby notarize a document knowing that Masud's father's signature is forged because "the terrorists didn't give him time to sign over power of attorney." Now they can search through Swiss banks for his money.
Eric has been photocopying documents without anyone paying attention, so he, Chris and Brad take their evidence to the police. The cops are worried that the evidence can be seen as legit and that all Joe did was confess to a murder, as a known liar to other known liar. "We'll need more of those nine people Joe confessed to," they are told. They score a winner on their first try with Kabek and then Ristelli (Eric Larson).
Detective Stoloff (Peter Jason), is given permission by Ron Levin's father to go through Ron's house and Joe's name comes up a few times.
Ristelli, who is the company lawyer, is sent to San Francisco with Booker to deal with some Masud paperwork and Booker tells him of the whole plan, though he still thinks Masud's father "had a heart attack." He quickly races to Eric and Chris, to tell them "Joe did it again. He's killed someone else, Mr. Nabodi's father." Holmby tells Joe that "somebody is stealing documents." He fingers Eric has been hanging out late at night, and Eric has never exactly covered his tracks. "Let's tell everyone to keep an eye on Eric. Chris is already a lost cause and he may have corrupted Eric," Joe tells Holmby and Dean.
Meanwhile, the police have brought in the FBI, SEC and everyone else possible based on Ristelli's story, and task forces are formed. "Can I ask a dumb question? Is anyone going to arrest Joe Hunt?" Chris asks, waved away by Stoloff.
The cyclotron machine is ready and Chris, Brad and Eric use that as an excuse to get out of town, but Joe first summons the three to his office to accuse them of stealing the documents, threatening to kill anyone who has done so. All deny it. "Remember guys, you can't beat a good conspiracy," Dean tells them on the way out. They then hide the machine, "so Joe can't make any money off it" and drove east to avoid Joe's clutches, calling every day to pretend they are at the site in Arizona. Meanwhile, Joe and Holmby break into Eric and Chris' apartment to look for the stolen documents. What he finds is worse: a message on the machine from Stoloff.
They three, out of money, have to return to town, but without Joe or Booker finding out. Yeah, guys, you might want to ditch the enormous orange van, if that's the case! Masterminds, these guys are not. Arriving right on their heels is Joe. He fires Chris and Brad, but invites Eric to stay and go with him, though Eric decides to quit. Citing "unfinished business," Joe wants them to meet him at the warehouse, which Chris calls "too isolated." To back up his threat, Joe makes sure the three can see Booker's car across the street. Joe asks Eric for the documents, offering to exchange one that implicates him, but Eric refuses. "You guys are amateurs at this sort of thing," Joe smoothly says, "and I declare war on you." He tells them he knows about Stoloff and everything else.
The trio is nervous. They move around and buy a gun, while Joe, Holmby and Dean plot against them. They intend to pin the Levin murder on Chris, but Joe comes up with a real corker for Brad. He says they plant ideas that he was some sort of sexual deviant, get Amy to back it up, then kill Brad's girlfriend and make it seem like the death occurred during sex. Even Dean and Holmby question that one! Dean testifies that "no one wanted to have anything to do with a plan like that!"
The police originally aren't getting anywhere, with nothing but contempt for "these rich kids." But, eventually the DA tells Stoloff to arrest Joe. Not surprisingly, Joe is calm during interrogation, "freely and at some length" answering every question the police lob at him. Until he sees the "to do" list for the Ron Levin murder. He stares at them while music blares, and then denies having written them, finally asking for a lawyer. Oh, come on, someone get Jessica Fletcher on this case. She'll crack it wide open.
Knowing that calls are monitored, Joe calls Dean from jail to establish alibis. And then Joe is released, causing the intrepid three to flee town again. "I kind of enjoyed talking to Detective Stoloff," Joe tells Dean. "What's he like?" "Kind of stupid," Joe answers. He believes he's in no trouble and that he even "masked" his feelings about the "to do" lists. "We planned brilliantly! No bodies, no witnesses!" he proclaims. Even better news, they have found money from Masud's father in Switzerland. However, he and Dean have no idea that at that moment, the Swiss bank is talking to the DA, telling him the signature on the power of attorney is a fraud. That and some other clues seem to seal it and they decide to "tell it to the judge." At 3am, they call a judge to freeze the Swiss assets, because "it's noon in Switzerland." They manage in just enough time, the power of attorney revoked as the money was about to be handed over to Masud and Todd.
Joe is arrested again, and this time Booker as well. Dean, who has been making himself sick over the whole affair, manages to get a copy of the police report. With that information, he goes to the police and is granted immunity in exchange for full testimony. He leads the police to the dump site where they find a skull. Amy testifies (though Jill's performance is so bad, I can only imagine how many takes it took to get everyone to stop laughing as she went through it) and adds more to the case, though she's a defense witness. There's a in-joke punchline to her testimony, when the DA asks her what her occupation is. "Actress." Amy, apparently. Definitely not Jill.
One witness we haven't seen yet, and unbilled Shirley Knight (we need a slummer, since the average age of the cast isn't old enough to have even been there once to have become half a has-been) as Joe's mother. "Joe would always find out what you liked, what you wanted to do, and then he would always find time to do that particular thing and share it with you. Even among children, he was a good leader because he was the type people enjoyed. He did it very subtly," she testifies. Doesn't sound like a psychopath, but then again, she is a defense witness as well. That and some stories about a heavy-handed father are supposed to make Joe somewhat sympathetic. I think it's way too late for that! Take a lesson, Jill, Shirley gives a classic courtroom performance, crying, hesitating, whispering, the whole deal! The DA counters Joe's mother with Ron's mother, and ultimately, nothing looks good for Joe.
Joe's lawyer declines to put him on the stand, so it's right to closing arguments, the final bursts for dependable actors Dale Dye and James Sloyan, who aren't even given character names. The guilty verdict is no surprise, because without it, we couldn't have had a miniseries based on it. A woman rushes to ask Joe his reaction. Cool as always, he replies, "astonishment, because Ron Levin is alive and well and will be found in the next couple of years," denying his guilt. He is sentenced to life in prison without parole. His comment to that? "My only responsibility is to keep my chin up. That's what I do best." That's just plain creepy!
Understandably Emmy-nominated itself and its writing, "Billionaire Boys Club" holds up better than what are considered classic 80s movies like "Fatal Attraction" and "Wall Street," considered the ultimate in 80s fare. How is that possible? Because the latter rely on 80s "excesses" that eventually came to abrupt halts. "Billionaire Boys Club" is actually about one cold-blooded killer, the 80s merely a backdrop for his true story. So, the excesses can be there for fun, but they are not the focus. The focus is squarely on the case itself and the lead murderer behind it. Like Jean Harris or Charles Manson or other famous murderers whose stories have become miniseries, Joe Hunt is so unique a character, a supremely confident and gifted liar who truly saw nothing wrong with going the extra step to actual murder to get what he wanted. In fact, "Billionaire Boys Club" doesn't actually exploit his greed (a key 80s excess, of course) to be rich like all the kids he gets into the BBC after the first few minutes. It relies completely on the case itself and the fact that Joe Hunt is just one hell of a great murderer, naturally brought down by the system he created (like all the others). Judd Nelson gives a fascinating and consistent performance as Joe Hunt, slick and so comfortable in his own skin. Brian McNamara, always undervalued, is wonderful as his accomplice and the rest all manage to click, though in that 80s style of acting that didn't actually demand outstanding work, just dedication. The case itself is so interesting and the writing so forceful, acting is really secondary in the success of "Billionaire Boys Club."
