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Casino Jack:  A Dark Comedy All Too True With Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramoff

By Sandra Olmsted

Casino Jack, the last film of the late George Hickenlooper, who had just come in to his own as a feature film director, is a tour de force for Hickenlooper and its star, Kevin Spacey, who plays the title character Casino Jack aka Jack Abramoff, once the most influential lobbyist in America.

Hickenlooper focuses not only on the facts of the Abramoff scandal, but on the complexities of Abramoff’s character, and on the humor in Norman Snider’s script, and the result is a fabulous dark comedy with an edgy message about power in the US government.  For his part, Spacey imbues Abramoff with the conflicting characteristics that make Abramoff, the man, more than real, and maybe a little sympathetic, too.

Jack Casino, the film, recounts the scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s rise to power and prominence and fall from grace and power and how all the rats on Abramoff’s sinking ship covered their backsides and scrambled for shore.  The scandal, which was called the biggest since Watergate, might have disappeared from collective memory had Hickenlooper not made this entertaining, exciting, and informative feature film.  (Alex Gibney also made a documentary this same topic:  Casino Jack and the United States of Money, which was also released this year.)  Any more of a  plot summary would only spoil the excitement of watching the facts unfold.

Spacey’s Abramoff is a devoted father and husband, an deeply religious man who creates and funds a number of charitable ventures, and an enterprising businessman who incorporates his faith into every aspect of his life, and that final character trait makes what he became involved in so interesting.  Ultimately, on some levels, he was doing wrong to do good — at least good as he saw it.  However, his judgment was progressively corrupted by greed and power.  Although Abramoff seemingly starts off as not-so-bad guy with too much ambition, he succumbs to temptation and gets into a very dark, very conflicted place.  In an emotional charged scene between Abramoff and his wife Pam (Kelly Preston), the crises of his corruption and of their marriage are laid bare.

Although Spacey steals the show, many other actors and characters deserve mentioning.  Spencer Garrett plays Tom Delay with a delightful smarminess, and he and Preston hold their own in scenes with Spacey.  Jon Lovitz, who of course is better known for skit and standup comedy, is terrific as a smalltime, crooked pitchman Adam Kidan, who Abramoff hires to run one of the tax shelters in which Abramoff and his partners are hiding and/or laundering unbelievable amounts of money.  Barry Pepper plays Michael Scanlon, Abramoff’s back-stabbing, womanizing partner, and the late Maury Chaykin is perfection as Kidan’s friend and mentor, Big Tony, an old-school mobster who sees violence as the most direct negotiating tool.

Hickenlooper, in addition to using the real names of so many involved in or touched by the scandal, also intercuts actual footage of the senate hearings run by Senator John McCain during which the real Abramoff took the fifth time and again.  In Hickenlooper’s film, Spacey’s Abramoff at least gets a fantasy sequence in which he tells all and demands to know why he is the target of an investigation when those presiding over the hearing are as guilty of taking money for votes as he was of handing out “campaign contributions” for votes.  Casino Jack is a ATO Pictures release which runs 108 minutes and is rated R for pervasive language, some violence, and brief nudity.

Casino Jack is an extremely enjoyable film that will make viewers want an end to lobbyists’ undue influence over American politics.  George Hickenlooper, a St. Louis native and a favorite of the St. Louis film community, died on October 29, 2010 at age 47.  Although he did live to see his Jack Casino film garner impressive reviews, he did not live to see the nationwide release this Friday, Jan. 7, 2010.

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