Casino Jack Depicts Abramoff as Flawed but Human
The deal marks the beginning of the end for Abramoff, a man with an insatiable appetite for, well, just about everything money can buy.
Spacey’s recent resume is littered with questionable decisions (Fred Claus) and commercial duds (Beyond the Sea). Here, he summons all his considerable charisma to give Abramoff a dignity other actors couldn’t convey.
“I’m Jack Abramoff, and I work out every day,” is one of the character’s mantras, and Spacey makes it sound almost noble.
Other film treatments might have spent two full hours demonizing Abramoff, but here we watch him pour money into a Jewish school and explore other philanthropic goals. The film doesn’t detest Abramoff, per se. It’s more fired up about the political system which gave rise to Abramoff and his goon squad.
Even conservative audiences might disagree with the tactic — Abramoff hurt not just innocents but his own party, helping the “Culture of Corruption” charges stick in the minds of many voters. But making the character multi-dimensional keep the film afloat.
Jeffrey R. Smith’s take on Grover Norquist, by comparison, is one-dimensionally callous. And Scanlon comes off only slightly better, with Pepper imbuing the character with a take-no-prisoners energy that’s both horrifying and oddly compelling.
Casino Jack does include some obvious caricatures. In one scene Rep. Tom DeLay is berating Abramoff with an obscenity-laced rant, only to modulate his tone when he realizes a man of faith is in the room with them. To the filmmakers, the religious right can be a nasty bunch, men who cling to their religion for show purposes.
And we’re constantly reminded of Abramoff’s connections. The camera lingers over pictures of him with heavy GOP hitters like President George W. Bush and Newt Gingrich, and the script makes it clear Abramoff had others like them on his speed dial. Even when the film is scoring political points — some justly earned — it doesn’t lose sight of the entertainment factor. That’s something all but missing in political misfires like Fair Game, Lions for Lambs, and Rendition.
The film does add some gratuitous slams against George W. Bush near the end, an unnecessary swipe that goes against the tone established through the rest of the movie.
Director George Hickenlooper, the cousin of Colorado Governor-elect John Hickenlooper, who died at age 47 a few weeks before Casino Jack’s nationwide release, keeps the tone surprisingly light despite the various crimes and a man viciously attacked with a ball point pen.
What’s more impressive is how much information comes across without bogging down the narrative. Consider the longer, and more dense, documentary on Abramoff’s crimes released earlier this year. Casino Jack and the United States of Money might be a more enriching take on the scandal. But Spacey and Hickenlooper’s Casino Jack proves the movie industry is still capable of taking a politically loaded topic and bringing it to the screen with its colorful personalities intact.
Editor’s Note: For a very different take on Casino Jack, don’t miss this recent edition of Poliwood on PJTV.
As a tea party conservative, why should I go see another liberally-biased movie and support Hollywood New Age film makers? No thanks. If I do go see a movie this Christmas season, I’ll be seeing The Little Fockers rather than this movie.
The movie is relatively fact based…it was what it was and depicted pretty accurately down to Abramoffs penchant to performing one liners in important meetings.
Kevin Spacey delivers in this performance.
I admire Christian Toto’s dedication to the increasingly lost art of movie review, and appreciate PJ Media’s inviting him to post, but I’m in agreement with #1 ‘Never’.
This one stays in the ‘not one dime’ catagory awaiting an HBO release.
It’s astonishing how far Spacey has fallen as a bankable star since his AMERICAN BEAUTY high point – when many in Hollywood genuinely believed he was the best actor performing today. Even more surprising is that neither age nor personal failing (drugs/illness) has little to do with it. He should be in his prime. Mr Toto is far too kind when mentioning Spacey hasn’t had a note worthy performance (or impressive box office) for many years. Could Bush Derrangement have a professional trigger?
Several other points worthy mentioning. Andrew Klaven and others have opined from the inside in a few ways but it bears mentioning over and over. There is a method to the madness of these liberal bombs that create a false conventional narrative bashing conservatives.
IN THE VALLEY OF ELI, RENDITION, FAIR GAME, now CASINO, (the war films alone are approaching two dozen) all reflect two distinct forms of currency, which does help explain why they keep getting made despite dismal domestic box office. First and foremost such projects are self-reinforcing in the dominate hollywood culture – which partly explains why you see so many of the same folks attached to these monstrosities.
While the high profile star like Sean (pinhead) Penn usually issues widespread press releases announcing a cut rate fee on his part for participation, just about everyone else above and below the line make good money irregardless of how the film plays in flyover country. So as a cottage industry it keeps those rolling them out in the pink so to speak. Call it the university professoriate tenure effect.
Such attachments also keep one in good standing in what is a highly poltizied industry – an industry whose unions contributions rival those at the Government Unions – and are as reliable to one side as the Black Vote – and expotentially more valuable.
And here is the final observation that is a heckva kicker; besides being culturally re-inforcing for those profiting while making these crappy anti-conservative & just as often anti-american confections – they largely get underwritten through their foreign reciepts – where the themes are quite popular with a certain demographic.
And these profits go far beyond what the intial box office is. Because fans over there – including such hell holes as Iran and North Korea – just like the craving for Levi’s in the former Soviet Union – people buy CD’s and rent vids even if they have to do it on the black market (which is certianly more disconcerning to the creaters of this tripe – since the black market pays no royalty or fee).
So the notion by some that there is a perverse incentive taking place, namely that these losers only hurt those that make them, they have got the incentive all wrong. Likewise the logic that they will soon stop as a result. Really, thus far everybody does make out.
It also should persuade those of a conservative bent – who have the money to produce alternatives along the lines of Capra or Wilder extolling American Exceptionalism – that they should cast off their doubts that there isn’t a genuine profit to mine – not just for immediate gratification – but for many many years.
Mr Toto should have much more to write about rather than the occational BLIND SIDE. It also might have the added benefit of slowing the tide of the leftist cottage industry – because nothing gets imitated in hollywood like success.
Friend of conservative or liberal, Abe Jackemoff was the sort of biped slime that gravitates toward Washington and in the process, corrupts all that it touches.
He shamed all Jews when he portrayed himself as a “Black Hat” and perpetrated the magnitude of scam that he did. He and Madoff should share a cell in a deep hole.