Casino Jack
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Casino Jack |
| Original title | Casino Jack |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2010 |
| length | 112 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | George Hickenlooper |
| script | Norman Snider |
| production |
Gary Howsam Bill Marks Georg Vitetzakis |
| music | Jonathan Goldsmith |
| camera | Adam Swica |
| cut | William Steinkamp |
| occupation | |
| |
Casino Jack is an American film directed by George Hickenlooper from the year 2010 with Kevin Spacey in the lead role. The film is based on real life and the scandals surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff . The film is not to be confused with the documentary Casino Jack & The United States of Money from the same year.
action
Jack Abramoff is a licensed lobbyist in Washington. He works for a large law firm and helps his clients to assert their interests through his contacts in Washington’s political circles. Together with his colleague Michael Scanlon, he tries to win a tribe of North American Indians as clients. The tribe runs a financially quite successful casino on their reservation . However, a neighboring tribe would also like to open a casino and would thus threaten the existence of the previous casino. For a fee of 30 million US dollars , Jack offers to prevent the construction of the new casino with political means.
Jack's boss puts pressure on him to make better use of his political contacts to get bigger, more profitable clients. A lawyer friend of mine is looking for an investor for a financially ailing company with casino ships in Florida and hopes that Jack can help him with his contacts. The Greek operator of the ships, Gus Boulis, has problems with the judiciary. Which is the gamble in his own front door an eyesore. Investigators urge him to sell the ships. Jack devises a plan to get into the business himself for $ 145 million. In order not to appear publicly as an investor himself, Jack wants to position the previous mattress seller Adam Kidan as a puppet and investor. The offer is initially uncomfortable. However, he eventually gets in and delivers the plan to take control of the casino ships.
At first, Jack Abramoff cannot convince the executive committee of the Indian tribe to accept his offer. To get the job anyway, Jack and Michael decide to influence the upcoming election of the tribe's leadership council so that it is controlled by people who are open to their offer. This is how they can ultimately win the lucrative order. Jack and Michael begin to embezzle money from the Indian tribe with dubious services and inflated bills.
Gus Boulis does not want to sell his fleet of casino ships at first. However, Jack can use his political contacts to exert public pressure on Gus and ultimately gain control of the casino ships with the help of a transfer falsified by Adam Kidan. Since Jack violated the law firm's ethical principles by acquiring the casino ships through the straw man Adam Kidan, he is fired. However, Jack and his team are immediately hired by another law firm. At the height of his power, Jack Abramoff opens a Japanese and a kosher restaurant in Washington and plans to build a private school.
Since Gus Boulis is very upset about the deceitful influence, he seriously injures Adam Kidan with a ballpoint pen. Adam then asks Big Tony to hold Gus off his neck. Instead of just keeping Gus under control, Big Tony kills Gus .
Since Michael Scanlon is cheating on his fiancée Emily Miller with a stewardess, Emily goes to the FBI and reports there about the illegal business of Michael and Jack at the expense of the Indian tribe. Susan Schmidt, a reporter for the Washington Post, has been researching Native American casinos and lobbyists' entanglements for some time. She receives further information from Emily Miller and finally brings the scandal to the public. Due to the public scandal, Jack is fired from the law firm.
Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, and others involved are eventually arrested. Michael beats Jack and, as a key witness, can negotiate a deal with the judiciary and thus avoid jail time. Jack is summoned before a parliamentary committee of inquiry, but on the advice of his lawyer, he refuses to testify. Jack and others involved are sentenced to prison terms and damages.
criticism
“Less would have been more: Despite the top line-up with Kevin Spacey as the sleazy lobbyist, Casino Jack remains stuck in the middle. It is precisely because of the vast amount of information and insider stories that the exciting story of Jack Abramoff can never really be carried away. Casino Jack wanted too much and in this way only convinces in places as a nasty swank. "
“It's always a pleasure to see a good-humored Kevin Spacey in a role in which he can show his very own outstanding talent for nuanced satire. In his last film, the director George Hickenlooper, who died in 2010, wrote the role of the unscrupulous lobbyist for the versatile actor. That could have turned out to be great cinema on a topic that seems like no other suitable for a political satire, but the film spoils this opportunity through an inappropriate overacting of Spacey's screen partner Barry Pepper. The moral of the unfortunately all too predictable story is presented a bit crude, but fans of Kevin Spacey will certainly get their money's worth despite these weaknesses. "
Of the film reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 38% are positive (as of July 2017).
publication
With a production budget of approximately US $ 12.5 million, the film grossed only approximately US $ 1.1 million worldwide. The film premiered in September 2010 at the Toronto International Film Festival and ran from December 17, 2010 in a few cinemas in the United States. In Germany the film was released directly on DVD.
Web links
- Casino Jack in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Certificate of Release for Casino Jack . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2012 (PDF; test number: 132 594 V).
- ↑ Review of Casino Jack at Filmempfoice.com.
- ↑ Dirk Hoffmann: Casino Jack. In: Zelluloid.de. July 15, 2012, archived from the original on April 3, 2016 ; accessed on September 14, 2018 .
- ↑ Casino Jack at Rotten Tomatoes (English).
- ↑ Casino Jack on boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed January 13, 2013.