There is a new film coming out this fall that you shouldn't miss. It's called Casino Jack, starring the incomparable Kevin Spacey as disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It is making its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 16th. If you don't know the story; Abramoff was a lobbyist who got a bit carried away with himself and began doing things that were shady, to put it mildly. He was tried and convicted of mail fraud for sending a phony money wire transfer, a felony, and spent the last 2 and 1/2 years in jail. He just got out about a month ago. As I write this he is living in a halfway house and working at Tov's Pizzeria, a kosher pizza joint, in Maryland where he is making between $7.50 and $10.00 per hour.
The George Hickenlooper film covers the ups and downs of this amazing character, brilliantly played by Kevin Spacey. We watch as Abramoff goes from egocentric, but decent, lobbyist; to egomaniacal crazy greed monger. He defrauds Indian tribes of millions, while pocketing amazing amounts of money for himself and his partner, Scanlon (played extremely well by Barry Pepper). He does business with a sleazy conman (Jon Lovitz) all in the interests of building his own empire.
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