Casino Jack (2010– 108 mins) K. Spacey, B. Pepper, J. Lovitz

Casino Jack is the high rise and low crash and burn story of  Jack Abramoff, a (former) hot shot government lobbyist. Jack is one of the quick talkers who works all the angles. He’s got his hands in everyone’s pocket playing the congress game. Getting different interests to give him money to influence politicians to speak out on special interests and to vote certain ways. His right hand man and main lackey is Michael Scanlon (Pepper), a man equally adept at lieing to his potential clients as he is to his friends and lovers. When they dabble in off shore casino’s and mob lie ties they start to raise everyone’s suspicions and come under fire from the authorities.

It’s not so much what happens as bookends in the story, b/c we all know Abramoff was quite the swindler and got his ass nailed to the wall by the feds some years ago, it’s the inner workings of the dealings and how he played everyone that makes for the interesting moments of the movie. Spacey plays him as a quick talking business man almost as a twin brother to Alec Baldwin’s character in “Glengarry Glen Ross”. He’s quick witted, has an answer for everything and not afraid to piss people off to become alpha dog. And Spacey does this in impressive manner. He embraces the role and runs with it. Unfortunately as slimy as Barry Pepper tries to be he’s just not quite up to the task of being on the same level as Spacey here. He lacks that certain gusto to the part that Spacey brings naturally. Also up to the part is Jon Lovitz, who is a fougazzy businessman whom Abramoff needs to help him get the owner of the off shore cruise casino business to let them invest in it and funnel money through. It’s a fairly familiar role for Lovitz but since it’s been a while since we have seen him do it, it’s still great to see him and it doesn’t get old. However, there is something about the movie that does get old. The first half of the movie is excellent. The inner workings of the lobbyist racket/scam and how capitol hill apparently runs is immensely interesting and fun to watch. However when the meat of the down fall starts to happen, something just seems to fall stale. The dialog goes south and the whole movie starts to fall apart. Even so I still enjoyed the movie and thought it was an interesting watch even if it might not be for everyone. It kinda makes me want to watch the documentary on Abramoff by Alex Gibney to see how it really went down and what was true in the movie.

Verdict–> Despite the bit of a drag in the last 1/3 of the movie it’s a good watch and an interesting story/look into government workings (if even more as a satirical view). This might not be a flick women will enjoy so much but still I enjoyed it. Some funny lines, and good speeches in it as well. I recommend this if you see it at the box if government satires are interesting to you. If not you might want to stay away. Might be better as a double feature with just about anything else.

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