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Jack Abramoff (Kevin Spacey) and Michael Scanlon (Barry Pepper) in Casino Jack. |
Lopsided lobbyists
By John Esther
As President Obama and like minded Republicans agree to extend the Bush error taxes to the great detriment of most Americans in (taking an) order to appease their frontal and backdoor lobbyists working to maintain the country's oligarchy, Casino Jack arrives to take us behind the scenes of clandestine campaigns pre-Wikileaks and remind us why the country's democracy is constantly undermined and detonated for destruction by many of the powers that be-at US.
Staunch big Republicans living large by the creed, stinking with greed, Jack "I Work Out Everyday" Abramoff (Kevin Spacey) and Michael Scanlon (Barry Pepper) kindled and swindled sweet deals with seemingly no end in sight. Political power brokers, they had brains, bank and the backdoor to some very influential people and nothing so small as integrity, ethics or friends would get in their way.
In addition to assisting powerful American Native tribes receive preferential treatment at the expense of smaller and less cooperating (or co-opted) ones, Abramoff and Scanlon successfully lobbied to get the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands exempted from American labor laws, fund fake grassroots organizations and abet corruption at Tyco, Inc.
While you can find a greater overview of what eventually landed Abramoff and company in the slammer -- with former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) the latest thug in the bunch headed for prison -- in Alex Gibney's documentary, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, which was released this year, the late director George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl) and screenwriter Norman Snider focus on the ego that drove Abramoff -- and, to a slighter degree, the libido that drove Scanlon -- to rip off Native American Casinos and purchase members of U.S. Government.
As they maneuvered their way into the pockets of politicians bought, they brought in Adam Kidan (Jon Lovitz), a longtime Republican operative, attorney and mattress kingpin who subsequently got in bed with Big Tony (the late Maury Chaykin), which led to a murder for hire. When that and other plans get away from their control, Abramoff and Scanlon began to scramble for cover-up. Yet they had run of luck. Friends and partners distanced and disrespected them while foes ceased on this most opportune chance for retribution -- served hot.
Conceptually reminiscent of what Robert Altman did to skewer Hollywood in The Player, Hickenlooper adopts an anti-cleverly (clever in the George H.W. Bush, Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Abramoff, etc., sense of the meaning) narrative by using a "cheesy" narrative to attack a cheese WIS/whiz-zzz-ed (on) America. That Abramoff -- a producer of a couple of anti-communist films featuring Dolph Lungren (the awful and homoerotic Red Scorpion) -- enjoys quoting other films, bubbles the cheesy crust to a boil.
As a result, in what would be his last film after he unexpectedly died from heart complications at the age of 47 on October 30, 2010 (theories to the cause of his death have been rather tame considering the tone and liberties Hickenlooper takes with some very powerful people), Hickenlooper lays bare before an audience the systematic corruption by corrupt men whom felt no compunction for the mass herd of Americans living out loud lives and lies of desperation.
More than any fictionalized film in recent memory, the riveting, rolling Casino Jack magnificently exposes our corrupt era of lobbyists, special interests, the politicians for sale and the American people who not only refuse to change the system, but actually vote and campaign against their own interests (i.e. teabaggers) while lobbyists and corporations continually seize more power against the people -- a situation far worse now thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's United Citizens vs. FEC decision earlier this year.
Thanks to Hickenlooper's direction, a brilliant script by Snider and stellar performances by Spacey and others -- notably Spencer Garrett as Delay and Christian Campbell as "Christian" Ralph Reed -- Casino Jack is one of the more original, angriest, comical, satirical and best films of 2010.
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| The late George Hickenlooper. |
