Casino Jack and the United States of Money

Casino Jack and the United States of Money (Director: Alex Gibney): If you like your polit­ical intrigue mired in the cess­pool of cor­rup­tion and gov­ern­mental incom­pet­ence then look no fur­ther than Casino Jack and the United States of Money, the latest doc­u­mentary from dir­ector Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Taxi to the Dark Side). Casino Jack… exam­ines the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff, the Washington super-lobbyist who is now fin­ishing up a four-year prison sen­tence after being con­victed of tax eva­sion, fraud, and con­spiracy charges. Abramoff and his crooked deal­ings are the focus, but Gibney also takes a peri­pheral view of the strange world of high-powered lobbying.

The film lays out a fairly dense land­scape of quickly-paced polit­ical facts and fig­ures, with a whirl­wind of inter­views involving former Abramoff asso­ci­ates, out­siders, and journ­al­ists who exposed his abuses of power. The central figure him­self is con­spicu­ously absent (for the most part), aside from the numerous archival clips and pho­to­graphs shown. Extensive inter­views with Abramoff were, in fact, con­ducted for the film, but prison rules pro­hib­ited him from being recorded. The film doesn’t suffer greatly from his rel­ative absence, and his side of things is provided through a voice-over from actor Stanley Tucci (actor Paul Rudd also con­trib­utes a voice-over for Michael Scanlon, a former Abramoff associate).

Abramoff is a very col­ourful char­acter — it’s no sur­prise to learn that a fea­ture film about him is due later this year, star­ring Kevin Spacey. The title being used, Casino Jack, has become a matter of dis­pute between its film­makers and Gibney. At age 12, after watching Fiddler on the Roof, Abramoff con­verted to Orthodox Judaism. Later years saw him obtain a law degree, become chairman of the rad­ical College Republican National Committee (a group of “free market extrem­ists” united by the Reagan Revolution that also included future Republican heavy­weights Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, and Ralph Reed, who espoused belief in min­imal gov­ern­ment and unreg­u­lated cap­it­alism), and even­tual ascen­sion to right-hand man to prom­inent Republican and one-time House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. DeLay, after his own fall from grace, could most recently be seen evis­cer­ating what little remained of his repu­ta­tion by appearing on “Dancing With The Stars”. Abramoff’s polit­ical career arc is inter­rupted by a ten-year stint as a Hollywood writer and pro­ducer — his most, uh, note­worthy credit is Red Scorpion, the schlocky 1989 Dolph Lundgren vehicle. His Hollywood past is humour­ously alluded to in an email shown at the begin­ning of Casino Jack…, where Abramoff writes to Gibney, “No one watches doc­u­ment­aries. You should make an action movie!”.

The lobbyist’s down­fall is care­fully dis­sected, providing an impressive exam­in­a­tion into Abramoff’s biggest blunder: the sys­tem­atic bilking of American Indian tribes who got into the casino busi­ness and needed his influence-peddling to sus­tain their oper­a­tions. Incriminating emails point to the cal­lous greed at the heart of his motiv­a­tion, including one where he laughs at their obli­vi­ous­ness to his fraud­u­lent billings by stating “stupid people get wiped out”. Other mor­ally dubious polit­ical deal­ings involve Abramoff’s lob­bying on behalf of sweat­shop owners in the Northern Marianas Islands (a US ter­ritory), a mis­guided attempt to con­vert the islands into a land of flour­ishing cap­it­alism, and a shady busi­ness deal involving a floating casino oper­a­tion known as SunCruz Casinos that involved the former owner being murdered. Abramoff’s ability to carry on the way he did, for as long as he did, is per­fectly summed up by a quote from a former dis­graced asso­ciate: “Jack Abramoff could sweet-talk a dog off a meat truck”.

It can be a chal­lenge to absorb everything coming at you and not be over­whelmed by the story’s wide scope, espe­cially with a run­ning time of two hours. Gibney wisely inserts some clever graphics, film clips (including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Patton), and recog­niz­able songs (including “Enter Sandman”, “Watching The Detectives”, and “Burning Down The House”) to dilute all of the heavy politi-speak hit­ting the viewer and alle­viate the oppressive ser­i­ous­ness of the film’s sub­ject matter. Getting through Casino Jack… may be daunting for some, but it is a sobering eye-opener into the world of lob­bying and the pro­found influ­ence it has on American politics.

Official site of the film

(7/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs10, corruption, politics