Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010)

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

It may well have to do with the fact that the pond scum explored in this doc about ripping off American Indians is so pervasive in the American political system is why we hide in dark theatres getting lost in contrived dreams rather than deal with the reality of these leeches in Armani suits with tentacles capable of getting the ear of some of the most powerful pols in DC. Given the choice of a spike in blood pressure or zoning out on an insipid comedy or unrealistic suspense drama where the good guy triumphs most of us choose (gauged by the miscreants huge take and light sentences) the latter.Casino Jack and the United States of Money is a mostly sober telling of super lobbyist Jack Abramhoff's rise and fall as he wheels and deals with not only shaking down American Indians with useful idiots for sale such as former Congressmen Bob Ney, Tom Delay and Ralph Reed but also involvement with Asian sweat shop owners and mob tied floating casinos. For Jack and his slimy cohorts Neil Volz and Michael Scanlon it was all about the green and coming up with creative ways to extract it from clients which they did in millions.Doc film maker Alex Gibney does a fine job of presenting the duplicitous practices of all involved diagramming for the viewer how money is funneled to get around campaign finance laws and keep the powers that be hands clean in the process. He retains his liberal credentials by hammering home the point it is mainly Republicans with their hands out but Congressional minority leader Reid of Nevada as well as Ted Kennedy "dim son" and former Congressman from RI, Patrick Kennedy are noted briefly getting a pretty hefty chunk of change as well.It is all a very dispiriting to view Casino Jack and the DC crowd gouging rather than serving made even more so by an insider that states these smoke and mirror practices are still in place today and will continue to be as long as money talks and campaign reform is kept at bay and an apathetic public views it as standard operational procedure. Gee, I wonder if they are showing a Laurel and Hardy down at the multiplex today?

First, in regard to CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY, Alex Gibney obviously is spreading himself too thin. Like most directors given an Oscar, he suddenly thinks he needs to cover every sub-genre in his field (in his case, feature documentaries), as evidenced by the quality of the six he has released since winning the Academy Award for his masterful TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE in early 2008. CASINO JACK is no exception to this slide. The title and opening imply the movie's main subject will be the way in which the U.S. House of Representatives' Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, R-TX used millions of dollars of Native American gambling profits to illegally force the Texas state legislature to dole out a half dozen congressional seats (stolen from northern states through the U.S. Census counting of illegal aliens) to his own country-clubbing GOP cronies.However, the first hour of this film is devoted to a peripheral sideshow involving DeLay's go-between with the Native Americans, "Casino Jack" Abramoff, and some Asian sex slaves duped into Northern Marianas Island sweat shops, chained to their sewing machines, raped by their foremen and forced to have abortions while dozens of "investigating" evangelical Christian GOP congressmen golfed at a five-star Hyatt Regency with Jack and Tom a couple miles away.Furthermore, Gibney skims over the relationship between DeLay, Abramoff and the GOP-hijacked pipeline manufacturer ENRON in one brief sentence, politely skipping over how ENRON intentionally bankrupted the state of California because Arnold Schwarzenegger did not want to wait for the next SCHEDULED election to become governor. (C'mon, he's already done a whole feature on this; couldn't he have had at least a TWO-sentence reprise here?) Finally, Gibney uses his exclusive interview footage with DeLay, jailed Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, R-OH and other members of the young Republican Class of 1984 which pulled off the recent economic coup d'etat against the American middle class to lob a series of softball questions that probably had Michael Moore falling out of his chair with hysterical laughter. If only CASINO JACK had a little of Moore's humor, its running time might have seemed closer to its actual 2 hours than 5 or 6.Ironically enough, the very same people "Casino Jack" called "m--f--ing morons" and "monkeys" within E-mails dramatically read aloud during CASINO JACK, that is, the Native Americans Gibney shows contributed $32 million in "lobbying fees" in one four-year period alone, have hired a Washington, DC, PR hack to write a book telling what a bad man Gibney is for impugning the reputation of "Saint Jack," according to a friend of mine who was contacted to help shill her book near one of the reservations Abramoff duped. Apparently, the reservation leaders in cahoots with Jack feel it is bad for their political careers for tribal members to learn they only got about $500,000 worth of actual lobbying, at the going rate, for the tens of millions they secretly funneled to the GOP shell corporations. This movie shows most of that money went for Jack and political soul mates to live the life of bazillionaires while rubbing shoulders at resorts with George W. Bush and most of the other notable Republicans of the times. All the while, Jack and his financial thugs were disparaging the natives, chortling that they were the stupidest rich people in the world. Now, to save face, these same dupes that were fleeced have to pay to have books written in an effort to paint black white (to borrow a phrase that one talking head in this movie says was Jack Abramoff's stock-in-trade).

Alex Gibney knows how to make a documentary. Like good documentaries, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money" is educational and informative. Unlike great documentaries, it is neither emotionally-resonating nor interesting.This film lacked anything to get me invested in it. The opening, introducing me to Jack Abramoff and all the players, was well researched and potentially interesting but very dry. Although I didn't find it enthralling, explosive or hilarious, I thought it could have been important but it doesn't have the timing that the more popular documentaries have."Casino Jack and the United States of Money" is good for documentary-lovers, but it doesn't have the staying power that a well told story should have.

Watching Casino Jack And The United States Of Money, you can't help but realize it's from the same guy who made Enron, a great documentary with what is pretty much the same type of subject. That's why I can't quite the newest from director Alex Gibney a particularly great movie. Sure, it's fun and interesting and the subject is interesting, but Enron blew my mind. I do, although highly recommend this film. The film's a documentary on Jack Abramoff, a politician who appeared nice at first but ended up screwing over one too many people. The film director could not get Abramoff to be in the film as he is still serving his jail sentence. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, it makes it so you get to hear from a lot of interesting alternatives. On the other hand, it's not as interesting if we don't get to hear from his side. The film manages to be a documentary and be entertaining, a hard feat for a documentary to accomplish. Alex Gibney is a talented director, and obviously know what he's doing with this type of material. Although not as good as this director's other film about political greed and scandals, the interesting subject, great interviewees, and fun execution make me highly recommend Casino Jack And The United States Of Money.