Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010) is another irresistible and vital exploration of institutional corruption from America's premiere cinematic muckraker and heroic progressive voice, Alex Gibney. However, unlike his best work, the documentary remains oblique in both its inquiry of corrupt characters and the institutions they infect and are infected by.
Casino Jack and the United States of Money compiles exhaustive research detailing the numerous corrupt schemes super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff concocted to pay off Republican lawmakers and grift riches from vulnerable dupes (Indian tribes) and insidious power players (Russian gangsters, Chinese sweatshop owners) alike. And it grasps the big picture of money's toxic influence in politics as the number one threat to American democracy. What it doesn't do is connect these two threads: that is, the granular detail of Abramoff's criminal malice to the big picture of democracy fundamentally corroded by the lobbying power of billionaires and industry.
The film misses several bits of context that could have provided vital connective tissue. For one, it skips over discussing the campaign finance laws that govern the flow of lobbyist cash. Granted, the film was made pre-Citizens United, but this missing thread leaves uncertainty as to how Abramoff's practices were uniquely illegal, and deprives the film of either making the distinction or highlighting the lack-thereof between legal and illegal bribery.
Secondly, Abramoff's political activities are shown as having consequences on a comparatively narrow set of demographics: Asian sweatshop workers and Indian tribes. This, in contrast, to the health care or financial services lobbies, the two largest in the country, whose corrupt influence on policy adversely shape the most vital aspects of every American's life, including, when it comes to health care, literally, life and death. The financial industry get a footnote in relation to the financial crisis but certainly a brief chapter on their role in deregulation throughout the 80's and 90's as well as the role of the health care lobby in stymying single-payer health insurance from Hillarycare to the public option, were warranted in order to better connect the film's specific focus to its big picture analysis.
None of this is to say that Casino Jack and the United States of Money isn't a richly entertaining experience. As only Gibney can do, it's a zesty explosion of ingeniously curated archival footage (Karl Rove as a young College Republican foot soldier alone makes the film a must-see), insightful talking head interviews, kinetically cut re-enactments, a beautifully teased narrative arc, and propulsive music that function as leitmotifs, underscore, and Greek chorus.
The most arresting moment of the film explores the 'Gimme Five!' scheme between Abramoff and top lieutenant Michael Scanlon. The text of the two's now-infamous emails is both vigorously voiced by actors and over-layed on top of a frenetically shot, black and white racquetball game that represents one of Scanlon and Abramoff's matches where they plotted the scheme. The sexualized language of the emails, the sweaty racquetball imagery, and the subsequent footage of the absurdly buff Scanlon cavorting as a lifeguard (a job he inexplicably held even after making millions) on gay beach resort, Rehoboth island - all conspire to create an image of a highly charged, homosocial connection. This is perhaps Gibney's most indelible gift: the ability to create rich layers of subtext in service of human observation as sharply tuned as his political astuteness.
In hindsight, Jack Abramoff was an odious embodiment of the corruption before it became legalized, normalized, and scaled via Citizens United. Analogous to Gibney's prior subject, Enron, Abramoff embodied the essential corrupt characteristics of a subsequent societal crisis (in Enron's case, the financial crisis; in this, our current political crisis) while remaining nevertheless distinct in degree and effect. Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room, Gibney's unmitigated masterpiece, concisely excavates the tumorous subject at hand; Casino Jack United States of Money is arguably more ambitious in exploring the larger cancer but messier, analytically and dramatically.
Casino Jack and the United States of Money compiles exhaustive research detailing the numerous corrupt schemes super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff concocted to pay off Republican lawmakers and grift riches from vulnerable dupes (Indian tribes) and insidious power players (Russian gangsters, Chinese sweatshop owners) alike. And it grasps the big picture of money's toxic influence in politics as the number one threat to American democracy. What it doesn't do is connect these two threads: that is, the granular detail of Abramoff's criminal malice to the big picture of democracy fundamentally corroded by the lobbying power of billionaires and industry.
The film misses several bits of context that could have provided vital connective tissue. For one, it skips over discussing the campaign finance laws that govern the flow of lobbyist cash. Granted, the film was made pre-Citizens United, but this missing thread leaves uncertainty as to how Abramoff's practices were uniquely illegal, and deprives the film of either making the distinction or highlighting the lack-thereof between legal and illegal bribery.
Secondly, Abramoff's political activities are shown as having consequences on a comparatively narrow set of demographics: Asian sweatshop workers and Indian tribes. This, in contrast, to the health care or financial services lobbies, the two largest in the country, whose corrupt influence on policy adversely shape the most vital aspects of every American's life, including, when it comes to health care, literally, life and death. The financial industry get a footnote in relation to the financial crisis but certainly a brief chapter on their role in deregulation throughout the 80's and 90's as well as the role of the health care lobby in stymying single-payer health insurance from Hillarycare to the public option, were warranted in order to better connect the film's specific focus to its big picture analysis.
None of this is to say that Casino Jack and the United States of Money isn't a richly entertaining experience. As only Gibney can do, it's a zesty explosion of ingeniously curated archival footage (Karl Rove as a young College Republican foot soldier alone makes the film a must-see), insightful talking head interviews, kinetically cut re-enactments, a beautifully teased narrative arc, and propulsive music that function as leitmotifs, underscore, and Greek chorus.
The most arresting moment of the film explores the 'Gimme Five!' scheme between Abramoff and top lieutenant Michael Scanlon. The text of the two's now-infamous emails is both vigorously voiced by actors and over-layed on top of a frenetically shot, black and white racquetball game that represents one of Scanlon and Abramoff's matches where they plotted the scheme. The sexualized language of the emails, the sweaty racquetball imagery, and the subsequent footage of the absurdly buff Scanlon cavorting as a lifeguard (a job he inexplicably held even after making millions) on gay beach resort, Rehoboth island - all conspire to create an image of a highly charged, homosocial connection. This is perhaps Gibney's most indelible gift: the ability to create rich layers of subtext in service of human observation as sharply tuned as his political astuteness.
In hindsight, Jack Abramoff was an odious embodiment of the corruption before it became legalized, normalized, and scaled via Citizens United. Analogous to Gibney's prior subject, Enron, Abramoff embodied the essential corrupt characteristics of a subsequent societal crisis (in Enron's case, the financial crisis; in this, our current political crisis) while remaining nevertheless distinct in degree and effect. Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room, Gibney's unmitigated masterpiece, concisely excavates the tumorous subject at hand; Casino Jack United States of Money is arguably more ambitious in exploring the larger cancer but messier, analytically and dramatically.
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