I know that Tarantino hates making movies about anything other than other movies, but this Orange County Lebanese car salesman with a 3rd grade education turned subprime lender turned Hollywood producer was probably never living in the real world. He likely saw his whole life as straight out of Starsky & Hutch.
C'mon, Quentin, nobody cares about your crush on Goebbels. Make a movie about a SoCal hustler who uses the Grift of the Century, subprime, to turn himself, briefly, into a mogul. It's a natural for you.
The Orange County Register reports:
Armed Men Invade Subprime Lender's HomeNEWPORT BEACH – Police arrested three men Tuesday night on suspicion of breaking into the Newport Coast mansion of a prominent former subprime lender.
Three people at the home of Daniel Sadek [to be played by Vince Vaughn or Eli Roth] suffered head injuries during the home invasion, and one of them was taken to the hospital for treatment. ...
Four armed men forced their way into a home at 3 Longboat, off Pelican Ridge, while another waited outside, Newport Beach police said.
The house was the scene of a fire two weeks ago. A Mercedes Benz CLK 550 parked in the driveway caught fire at 3 a.m. Thanksgiving morning and singed the house and garage before firefighters knocked it down. ...
The men arrested were identified as Mickael Andre Hastings [Samuel L. Jackson], 36, of Los Angeles, Antoine Bashiri Boyd [Djimon Hounsou], 31, of Los Angeles, and Peter Joseph Paturzo [Mickey Rourke], 44, of Mission Viejo.
Sadek made and lost a fortune in the subprime mortgage business. Quick Loan Funding, which he founded in 2002, wrote about $4 billion in subprime mortgages before it collapsed in 2007.
He declared bankruptcy in Nevada two months ago.
With his earnings from Quick Loan, Sadek lived a high-roller lifestyle. He bought the Newport Coast mansion, a fleet of exotic cars and crashed some of them in a movie he financed called "Redline." He bought a condo in Las Vegas where he became a high roller at the blackjack tables. Court records list cash advances taken out on his credit card at casinos from Hawaiian Gardens to Lebanon [where he was born].
In court filings, he acknowledges gambling in the multi-million dollar range.
Police did not immediately know whether the men who paid Sadek a visit Tuesday night were collecting on a debt or were there to rob. They were taking cash and jewelry, Lt. Craig Fox of the Newport Beach Police Department said. ...
In September, Vanity Fair ranked Sadek No. 86 on a list of institutions and people most to blame for the nation's economic problems. The magazine called him "Predator Zero in the subprime-mortgage game," and quoted a competitor saying he "would have written a loan to 'an insolvent arsonist.'"
In May 2007, the Register reported that Sadek's company, Quick Loan, had been accused of predatory lending, deceptive underwriting and fraud in at least eight lawsuits. ...
Since the housing market collapse, Sadek's finances have fallen apart. Over the last two years, he's been sued in Superior Court a dozen times; Quick Loan Funding was sued 13 times locally in its last two years. ...
Court documents filed by his attorney in July said that Sadek was under medical care for an "extreme panic disorder" and regularly taking "substantial doses" of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. At the time, Wells Fargo was trying to get Sadek to give a deposition in a lawsuit over his use of some accounts; but the court filing claimed he would have to take so much medication to make the trip to Temecula for the deposition that it might impair his concentration and memory.
Sadek got into home loans in 2002 after seeing how many mortgage brokers came into Fletcher Jones Motorcars, where he worked as a salesman.
Although his education had stopped at third grade, Sadek paid the $250 for a state lender license and started selling home loans through his company, Quick Loan Funding.
Over the next five years, Quick Loan wrote $3.8 billion in mortgages, lending money fast - and often on onerous terms - to people with shaky credit.
Boosted by high fees and interest rates - high even for the subprime industry - Quick Loan's after-tax profits averaged 29 percent of revenue. In 2005, Quick Loan's biggest year, profit topped $37 million.
Sadek used the earnings to live the high life, buying a fleet of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches, dating a soap opera starlet and producing movies. He cultivated a rebel image, wearing a beard and hair to his shoulders, dressing in T-shirts and flip-flops, eschewing the typical mortgage banker's pinstripes.
His movie "Redline" starred his then-girlfriend, Nadia Bjorlin [Fergie], comedian Eddie Griffin [Eddie Griffin], and his fleet of Ferraris, Porsches and Saleen S7 exotic cars. [Eddie famously crashed one of his Enzo Ferrari's during a publicity event.] It cost him $31 million to make, distribute and publicize, he once told the Register, but only earned $8.2 million in ticket sales worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Sadek was sued in federal court by the Cartoon Network for failing to pay $845,000 in advertising for the film.
He flew private jets to Las Vegas, where he gambled with high rollers at the Bellagio Resort.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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12 comments:
Forget Tarantino. This could be the perfect inspiration for Joseph Wambaugh's next novel or work of non-fiction.
Sadek made a $4,600 contribution to the Obama campaign.
Who should feel more slighted? The GOP, which missed out on a member of its natural constituency of people with more money than sense, or the Democrats, who can be bought so cheaply by a guy who laughs off crashing one of the world's rarest sports cars?
Or maybe he just believes in hope and change.
I just finished Wambaugh's new "Hollywood Moon." It's another good one in his trilogy about the Hollywood LAPD station.
There's a possibility that Wambaugh reads this blog, since wacky LA crime stories I've highlighted have shown up in his last two books, although more likely the influence runs in the opposite direction: I find certain local crime stories interesting because I've been influenced by Wambaugh for 35 years.
The amount of cash and training to get a lender's license is ridiculously low compared to what it takes to get a CFA license. Clearly they should be equally regulated, considering the amount of financial devastation they can do. And no I'm not advocating making the CFA easier, I'm advocating higher standards for the lending market.
This definitely sounds like an Elmore Leonard novel, too, I must say (Tarantino obviously is influenced by Leonard, based Jackie Brown on Leonard's Rum Punch). I can imagine Chilli Palmer of "Get Shorty" in this plot somewhere.
Why is this not labeled under the classic Steve category of "Adventures of Men with Gold Chains."
These peoples from the former lands of the Ottoman Empire come to our shores and immediately begin scamming.
Sailer, have you ever read Natural History of the Rich? Fun book. Not much on the race angle, but interesting Darwinian look at the overclass.
Steve, when you review the movie "Invictus" be sure to note if they mention that the New Zealand team (ironically, the "All Blacks") may have been poisoned two days before the final.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/4750515/Mandela-book-stirs-rugby-poison-riddle.html
crazy stuff. i wondered where that guy came from. he seemed very young to have that much money. enough to produce a wide release film all on his own - enough money to not sweat it when eddie griffin crashed his enzo! that's big time money.
so what happened to the woman cast as the star in that movie? STUNNING woman, but she never got any more roles in films beyond the direct to video level. easily one of the best looking women ever cast, which is probably the problem.
Title "El American Dreamo"
Movie ends in car chase, W as getaway driver. Or just an accomplice in a W mask.
Dirty Dan should have collection of boxer shorts sewed from old American flags. Every hooker sex scene is pomo patriotic.
Open pre-title on pasty lachrymose babushka kissing dirt of Ellis Island, 1884... titles feature legless vets in b.g. dancing to Lee Greenwood.... then flash forward. Dirty Dan looks at wind-whipped Glory over the car lot and gets Big Idea. Our story begins....
Actor playing Dan should SHOUT EVERY LINE. No playing it cool ever. Trust me.
Getaway passengers survive slo-mo launch from high bridge (Hendrix solo under - Danny is queer for Jimmy, collects all his shit, it's his heart). Danny last seen absconding to more understanding country. Changes into redless undershorts?
Redline investors who are still solvent: send me develop money now, before I option this. Quentin, I'm going to kick your ass if you forget your Geritol even ONE f-ing day.
wait. IMDB informs me that she is a regular character on "days of our lives".
stunner! half swedish, half iranian. we have to put her in the tarantino movie.
I liked the touch about the guy being treated for extreme panic attacks. Like, when you owe some real scary people a lot of money, and they remind you of your debts by blowing up your car in the middle of the night, or busting down your door and smacking you and your family around, that's the sort of thing that might give you panic attacks.
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