Business Ethics (2019)

The film begins with a flashback depicting a young commerce student, Zachery Cranston, who asks his professor if it's worth conducting an illegal business practice if the reward outweighs the risk. The film cuts to several years later and introduces the now adult Zachery Cranston, whose life is in shambles due to some terrible ordeal, despite the beautiful office he finds himself in.

He's rude to Veronica, his secretary and mistress, throwing away a present she's left for him. As he contemplates suicide by gun, he reflects back on what led to things all going downhill for him. The story cuts to Zachery as a little boy in the 1980's. His mother runs her own old-fashioned candy store, and the two of them are quite happy together. From a young age though, Zachery is influenced by his sleazy stepfather, Edwin Murk, a mogul from the "greed is good" era who teaches him the difference between good and bad by showing him an expensive gold watch, in comparison with Zachery's own cheap plastic toy watch. Murk gives a leather watch to Zachery as an upgrade. As Zachery grows up, he finishes business school and works as an intern for Murk's successful company, where a bespectacled and shy Veronica then works. They both watch in shock as Murk is hauled away by the police for conducting an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Zachery brushes up on business by reading his old textbooks, and decides to make his start as a hedge fund manager, trying to get a number of parties, mostly old rich men, on board with his idea. The only man who shows any interest is Magnus Hardcastle, a wealthy collector and associate of a museum; most of Hardcastle's investments are in bizarre and disturbing things like bull semen, hitman-for-hire companies, and black ops operations, and Hardcastle himself is so extremely callous that both his maid and his butler are in cahoots, trying to assassinate him. Hardcastle soon informs Zachery though that without results, he'll have to take his interests elsewhere. Desperate, Zachery decides to follow in Murk's corrupt footsteps with a Ponzi scheme of his own, deliberately hiring talented but mentally unstable staff who won't rat out his plans. This includes Veronica, who he sees as naive and slow. He also hires Wilfred as his partner; Wilfred is unable to pay for his ill wife's medical treatment to save her life, and so Zachery preys on his desperation and depression to win him over. Finally, he hires Martin Abacus, a gifted but severely alcoholic accountant. When Zachery instructs his staff on the Ponzi scheme's dynamics of creating the impression of a 20% return for investors, Wilfred is too confused by the business jargon, Martin's too drunk, and Veronica isn't even present. At first, the Ponzi scheme only brings on a few casual investors, including Hardcastle. Other investors who finally kick off the scheme into real action include Hector Angle, an American golf fan, and Mr. Karamazov, a Siberian investor who's implied to be in the mafia. As Zachery begins appearing on news shows and gets rewarded as an honorary member of law, and as the mayor invests in his scheme, giving him the keys to the city, Zachery's now bloated ego distances him from Wilfred and Martin; he spends more time keeping up appearances and attending various meetings and parties, where in six years, he finds himself known as one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the world. A few times, he almost slips up and reveals the scheme himself. During a daytime talk show, the hostess asks him a stock market question that reveals he's no longer paying any attention to the market itself anymore, and another time, Hardcastle mentions the strange company names under Zachery's fund, most of which relate to teddy bears and cutesy things that only Veronica values, hinting that she made the names up for Zachery and that the money's coming from the investors, not the returns. Luckily for Zachery, nobody notices these discrepancies. Zachery buys Murk's old estate, which includes his luxurious homestead and a sprawling field of land that also includes a former farm and a spacious wooded area. He also buys Veronica a present. Veronica, who has a crush on him, hopes it'll be something romantic, but it's actually an enormous photo of Zachery on the front cover of a financial magazine. Murk is convicted of fraud. He tells Zachery that he was wrong about all the past times he mentioned good and evil, that the expensive gold watch was only beautiful, not good. He leaves Zachery with a copy of the Bible as a parting gift, and hangs himself in prison that night, writing a Bible verse on the wall that implicates his own soullessness, and a warning for others not to become soulless in their pursuits. Zachery's mother, distraught, has a heart attack while leaving the prison after picking up Murk's belongings. Zachery is thrown into grief to find both his parents dead, speculating that his mother died of a broken heart. Still, he continues with his Ponzi scheme, although he hasn't seen Martin in a while, and he has no closeness to any of his colleagues or investors in the absence of his own family. He discovers, much to his horror, that Martin Abacus has been in rehab, and moreover, that when sober, Martin's now fully aware of the gravity of what he's participated in. Zachery downs a glass of wine, and insists that he get the chance to show Martin around the estate grounds. They walk through the entirety of the large estate and through the woods, and when Martin finally realizes what Zachery's intent is, Zachery gives him a flask of booze and makes him walk a few spaces away from him, where he proceeds to shoot Martin. He then buries Martin in a shallow grave and returns home. The Ponzi scheme continues on, but Zachery realizes that he's no longer finding any thrill or enjoyment in it, or in his money. After scamming a woman, Dr. Helen, when she seeks help in funding a medical project to save lives, he has hallucinations of his old business ethics professor, Professor Wrightway, dressed in a bold purple suit and warning Zachery repeatedly of the legal and financial implications to come if he isn't careful. Meanwhile, Karamazov's English translator suspects a Ponzi scheme, but Veronica aids Zachery in talking the man out of his own suspicions. In Martin Abacus's absence, Zachery pretends that the cocaine addict in a Hawaiian shirt who works with him is in fact the accountant. They then get Karamazov drunk until he's in good spirits enough to leave them alone. A police detective suspects that Martin was killed on Zachery's property, and begins bringing in crews of crime scene investigators to search. They find old farm equipment, but no body. Zachery feigns remorse for the disappearance of Martin, but that night, he digs up Martin's body from the grave he'd previously dug, violently dismembering it and dumping the now unidentifiable remains at a hospital disposal incinerator. Zachery's investors start pulling out, no longer getting the returns they expected, and Zachery's largest investors, who were mostly criminals, are arrested or killed. This includes Karamazov himself; his translator informs Zachery that Karamazov is dead. This leaves Zachery desperate for funds. He learns of some savings bonds kept in a safe deposit box for him in a bank on the island of St. Euripides, and he enlists the little old lady with the key to the deposit box, Mrs. Finnigan, to go with him. They meet up with an old friend, Sartori, who flirtatiously tries to get Mrs. Finnigan to go to brunch with him, but he's disappointed when she's not taken by his sexual advances, and when his much younger wife flirts with Zachery. Mrs. Finnigan gets the savings bonds out of the box, giving them to Zachery, but a police detective arrests Zachery, insisting he's involved in some kind of international fraud. Mrs. Finnigan beats the police detective with her handbag, and the detective cries assault, threatening to arrest both Zachery and Mrs. Finnigan both if Zachery doesn't allow his briefcase with the savings bonds to be searched. Zachery's able to talk his way out of the situation, but Sartori, who drives them home, holds them at gunpoint and steals the savings bonds. Unknown to Sartori, Zachery had placed replica savings bonds in the briefcase, all of which were fake; he'd stuffed the real bonds inside his jacket. He brings them home to show Wilfred, but Wilfred tearfully reveals that Zachery's bonds are fakes, as well - they're all in increments of a million dollars, which the United States doesn't do. Zachery is stunned, and realizes that he needs to tell the truth to his only remaining investor, Magnus Hardcastle. Hardcastle is surprisingly forgiving about the whole thing, noting that he himself did things that were highly immoral in his own career, if not actually illegal, as he always drew the line at breaches of the law. He reveals to Zachery though that his investment in fact belonged to the museum organization, and the museum won't be so forgiving about it. Zachery realizes that he'll either go to jail or be bankrupt and penniless if he doesn't do something. He takes Veronica to dinner, buys her a rose, and has sex with her. She's elated by his romantic advances, but he's emotionless during the whole date. He goes back to his old classroom from university, and sits in the empty amphitheater where he once learned business ethics. He realizes, after talking with Professor Wrightway, that he's going to have to be honest at some point. He's surprised to find himself emotionless about any regrets he might have had. Martin Abacus's ghost, drenched in blood, appears and asks Zachery if he regrets murdering him. A flashback reveals that Martin had still been alive after being shot, and that Zachery might have been able to save him, but that he'd chosen to shoot him in the head instead, the second bullet killing him rather than the first. Zachery admits that he felt no regrets about taking Martin's life, either. In his office, Zachery contemplates suicide with the gun he used to kill Martin, but Veronica walks in on him. She reveals that a stack of papers that she'd been ordered to label "The Sh*t Pile" actually had hidden funds in them, enough to pay off Dr. Helen, who'd been asking where the money was to fund her medical device project. Veronica is deeply bothered upon realizing that Zachery was running a Ponzi scheme, and even more bothered that he'd be willing to scam a medical doctor doing life-saving research. She sees that the present she'd given Zachery, a purple teddy bear that he'd complimented her on upon first hiring her, now sits in the garbage can by his desk. Zachery is thrilled by the reveal of the hidden funds, and gets himself dressed up to go meet Hardcastle. He rudely brushes off the dinner date he had with Veronica, and turns to fix himself up in the full-length mirror beside his desk, grinning. Furious, Veronica shoots him in the back, killing him as the screen fades to black.