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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.

The late George Hickenlooper.

Making money is faking sense: Jack Abramoff is Casino Jack.

This land is their land

By Don Simpson

Before Jack Abramoff became a highly influential and grossly corrupt Washington D.C. lobbyist for the Preston Gates & Ellis and Greenberg Traurig firms, he was the esteemed Chairman of the College Republican National Committee (1981-1985); and while Chairman, Abramoff is credited for making the College Republicans more activist and more conservative than ever before. It is also worth noting that Grover Norquist served as Abramoff’s executive director and Ralph Reed was hired as an unpaid intern –- the infamous Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate was thus formed. Other highlights on Abramoff’s resume: in 1985, he joined Citizens for America, a pro-Pres. Reagan group that helped build support for the Nicaraguan Contras; he also tried his hands at cinema –- writing and producing the anti-communist diatribe, Red Scorpion (starring Dolph Lundgren), which was released in 1989.

We all know something or other about Abramoff’s career as a lobbyist. Thanks to the “maverick” John McCain, we know that Abramoff conned wealthy Native American tribes while lobbying for legislation related to their casinos. Abramoff also developed an elaborate scheme concerning sweatshop labor in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); he matched Tom DeLay (who later went on to star in Dancing with the Stars) with the Executives of Naftasib (a Russian energy company) who needed DeLay’s support in making it possible for the IMF to bail out the Russian economy; he was hired by Tyco to lobby Congress and the White House on Tyco's Bermuda tax-exempt status. The list goes on and on and on… For each of his lobbying jobs, Abramoff funneled millions of dollars from his clients to the deep pockets of influential politicians. Abramoff personified the power of money in politics.

Alex Gibney’s documentary provides a very detailed look at Abramoff’s history and grants us a pretty solid understanding of who Abramoff really is. Gibney interviews several of the key players in the Abramoff saga (many of whom were found guilty for their involvement with Abramoff) and whomever he does not have access to interview (most notably Abramoff and DeLay) Gibney utilizes stock footage which is then able to speak for itself. All of the talking heads are relatively upfront and frank with Gibney, which is where some of the most insightful information about Abramoff is revealed. I’m not typically a fan of talking head documentaries, but no other documentary filmmaking technique would have worked quite as well with this content.

The greatest takeaway from Casino Jack and the United States of Money concerns just how influential some lobbyists can be. They allow the corporations and individuals with the most money to have tremendous influence on politics in the United States. I don’t recall that Gibney ever makes reference to the evil “O” word (oligarchy); but Casino Jack and the United States of Money provides indisputable evidence that the Unites States is not a democracy or republic, it truly is an oligarchy. Thanks to loose campaign finance laws (made even more lax by the Supreme Court, supposedly in the name of “free speech”), money is able to get the financial elite’s choice of politicians elected; and thanks to the efforts of lobbyists, money is able to get the financial elite’s choice of legislation passed. If you’re hoping for change, well…one thing we should have all learned by now is that no matter how adamant a presidential candidate is about the subjects of campaign finance reform and curtailing the power of lobbyists, a politician is not going to bite the hands that are feeding him or her.

By the way Casino Jack and the United States of Money is the first of two films about Abramoff to be released this year. George Hickenlooper’s bio-pic starring Kevin Spacey in scheduled for release in Octover 2010.

FILM REVIEW: CASINO JACK

FILM REVIEW: CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY