Casino Jack

On December 3, 2010, former Washington lobbyist, kingmaker, huckster, and felon was released from federal prison after serving nearly four years of a six-year sentence for fraud and corruption of public officials. A few days later, Casino Jack movie opened in limited North American release: The consummate con man and his complicated movie are out on the streets. "Casino Jack movie attempts to dramatize Jack Abramoff's epic manipulation and exploitation of Native American gaming officials and his systematic corruption of two White House officials, a Congressman, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional staffers. Abramoff took millions from the gaming nations, and he redistributed hundreds of thousands among the folks who walk Washington's corridors of power. The difference, of course, was just his fee."The problem is that epic scandals do not easily reduce to pulp fiction fare. Casino Jack is one of those ripped-from-the-headlines movies that proves both Truth's capacity for growing stranger than fiction and a good story's capacity for becoming too big even for the big screen. The culture of corruption in Washington, DC is just too complicated to unravel in one single plot thread, and the character of "Casino Jack" Abramoff is just a little too kaleidoscopically complex and quirky to demystify in just an hour and a half. Kevin Spacey, however, brings all of his training, talent, and one-of-a-kind intensity to the role of Abramoff. Even if the story does not always make perfect sense, nevertheless Spacey and associates recreate the look and feel of "an almost impossibly rich historical record of scandal, ambition, double dealing and ideological grandstanding."