With Casino Jack, Hickenlooper has two primary goals: to develop Abramoff into a more complex individual than a newsreel caricature and to illustrate how, in the culture of Washington, anyone and anything is for sale. A more full catalog of Abramoff's misdeeds can be found in Alex Gibney's recent documentary, Casino Jack and the United States of Money. In reality, these incidents were only the 'tip of the iceberg,' so to speak, but the film limits its scope in order to maintain a reasonable running length. With Scanlon and small-time shyster businessman Adam Kidan (Jon Lovitz), he gains a partial interest in a line of casino cruises after sending a fake wire transfer for $23 million.

With the help of Scanlon (Barry Pepper), he orchestrates a scheme by which he defrauds a group of Native Americans out of millions of dollars after being hired to lobby for their casinos. The film focuses on two of Abramoff's most egregious acts of wrongdoing. Someone with influence can get anything they want - or so Abramoff believes.

As Abramoff remarks in a voiceover, influence is the most important currency in Washington - more valuable even than breathable air. These two occurrences have provided Casino Jack with substantial free publicity, helping people remember a name they probably haven't heard in about five years, when Abramoff stopped being a nightly news staple.Ĭasino Jack is more concerned with the building blocks of Abramoff's fall than it is about how he amassed his immense network of Washington contacts and came to wield as much (or more) influence than any other man in his profession. His cohort, Michael Scanlon, who cooperated with the government, is due to be sentenced on December 21. Abramoff was released from his halfway house on December 4, ending a prison term. The release of Casino Jack is timely, even though many of the events covered in the movie took place nearly a decade ago. Later in the film, Spacey has an Al Pacino/ And Justice for All moment. The initial scene, in which Spacey snarls a monologue at an image of himself in the bathroom mirror, is strangely reminiscent of the opening of Patton - uncompromising and full of profanity-laden, quotable lines. He roars back in Casino Jack, digging his teeth into Abramoff with the tenacity of a pit bull going after a slab of raw meat. Indeed, Casino Jack is all about Spacey, who has been keeping a low profile for the better part of a decade, making occasional but unremarkable appearances. Casino Jack (originally called Bagman), George Hickenlooper's dramatization of the rise and fall of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, can be succinctly summarized this way: the straightforward narrative provides a platform for a powerhouse performance by Kevin Spacey.

Casino jack opening monologue