Film Review Casino Jack
“After God, faith and nation, nothing is more important than political influence” said Jack Abramoff. Nothing is more pleasurable than to denounce the bottom, add Casino Jack.
Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove, George W. Bush, Bob Ney and John McCain … Some of these names are more familiar to the general public than others, but all have their measure, shaped the America of the late 90′s and early 2000. They are men of K Street, Washington crossing the street and where there are countless members of law firms, consultants, lobbyists, who meet every day by politicians, not least.
Casino Jack tells the story of these men, some in the shadows, others in full light, but all participants in a race for power and influence, all inhabited by a frightening cynicism. Specifically, Casino Jack interested in Jack Abramoff, lobbyist-loving super luxury and high life, and able to make do with his ethics with ease.
With his partner just as rapacious and engineered to help after the opening of Indian casinos because of corruption and its most faithful ally, however, Jack will have to face the law. A face-to-face that will take him to prison after his conviction in 2006.
All this has indeed taken place and Casino Jack, appropriately, does not disguise the scene, neither the names nor the reality of this political and financial scandal. Latest film by George Hickenlooper (director of Dogtown or Mayor of the Sunset Strip died last October), he delights even with apparent pleasure to openly denounce these criminal practices and wander through the bleak scenes of American politics. Directed by ultra-dynamic and entertaining, frenetic editing, music and smart light which is used and abused, Casino Jack appears elsewhere as intoxicated with his own audacity.
Halfway between the fierce satire Thank You for Smoking and realistic morality tale, the film nevertheless reluctant to borrow the entire process of fierce irony to be tinted with a look that you want to copy on the rise and fall of a man of power. And that’s where the problem starts to hurt. Unable to retreat on its main character, truffles his story too many dialogues written and sententious, the filmmaker seems to completely fascinated by this man, indeed, complex and seductive.
Especially since Kevin Spacey, here in one of his best roles, is deploying all his charisma to make this even more endearing Abramoff. Imitating Dolph Lundgren, Sylvester Stallone and Marlon Brando (in his prologue to tribute Raging Bull his last movie, the movie is full of allusions and quotations other films), liar, cheater, manipulator, Abramoff was first and foremost a showman capable of putting anyone in his pocket with a smile or a coaxing voice. The kind you can not stop staring, mesmerized. Under a spell which also seems to have fallen Hickenlooper and that makes him, too bad, somewhat missed its target.
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