Actor Ben McKenzie, most well known for his role as “Ryan Atwood” in the television series The O.C., makes his feature directorial debut with this documentary based on his own curiosities and findings surrounding cryptocurrency.

Everyone Is Lying To You For Money opens with a narration from McKenzie on the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia and where money was invented. He then lets us know that what we’ll be watching is a film about cryptocurrency. McKenzie introduces himself as the television actor we all know him to be, listing off his credits, including his breakthrough in The O.C. and his rise to bigger stardom with the series Gotham. He discusses his first failed financial investment, made with his acting earnings based on a friend’s advice for a medical device. Later, as COVID hit, a Zoom call with that same friend led to his curiosity about cryptocurrency and his decision to make a documentary about it.

The journey starts in Miami at the “Bitcoin 2022” conference, where he’s able to ask questions and hear others’ opinions. He plays to the camera by attempting to purchase a beer with Bitcoin, only to be told to pay the old-fashioned way—with cash. McKenzie furthers his education by traveling to El Salvador, where its president, Nayib Bukele, has embraced Bitcoin, and McKenzie wants to see its societal effects. He quickly discovers that Bitcoin is not widely embraced as a form of payment among locals.

Ben McKenzie confronts the toxic online culture surrounding cryptocurrency in Everyone Is Lying To You For Money.

“The journey starts in Miami at the ‘Bitcoin 2022’ conference…”

Through his notoriety as an actor, he is able to sit down with Alex Mashinsky, founder of a company called Celsius that acts as a bank but claims to be better. He also meets Sam Bankman-Fried, who created the cryptocurrency company FTX and became a billionaire. Bankman-Fried promotes the idea that he used his trading skills and knowledge to amass his wealth and is now trying to give back to the people. Ultimately, those sit-down interviews led to breaking news regarding those financial institutions in real time and, for McKenzie, even testimony before the United States Senate.

Initially, I didn’t know I was going to be watching a documentary. I heard “Ben McKenzie” and “directorial debut,” and as a fan of The O.C., I was curious. The documentary plays out very much like an Anthony Bourdain show. Bourdain travels the world, sits down with locals, and introduces food as he eats. Here, McKenzie is doing that for cryptocurrency. Like Bourdain, he also pulls back the curtain with lightheartedness and humor. The joke is never lost that he will always be remembered most as Ryan Atwood.

His wife, actress Morena Baccarin, appears in the documentary, and you can see her reactions to the invasiveness of having a film crew in their home—even on set—which leads to a small cameo from actor Gerard Butler. What is charming is getting a glimpse of the couple outside of their acting roles and seeing how they interact in real life, without the ridiculousness of reality television hijinks.

I think what McKenzie innocently started out as a way to educate himself and the audience about cryptocurrency ends up playing out very much like a scripted movie. The film reaches a point that echoes the old saying, “You couldn’t even write this if you wanted to,” which holds true here and is what makes it so watchable. It also leaves me curious about what footage might have been left on the cutting room floor or, because it’s a documentary, how the story might have unfolded otherwise. If Ben McKenzie continues on this path as a filmmaker and builds on this directorial debut, he may just be able to shake off Ryan Atwood, much like Ron Howard was able to move beyond Opie and Richie Cunningham.