It is in the documentary world that Hickenlooper arguably did some of his best work, most notably the 1992 Emmy-winning behind-the-scenes look at the star-crossed production of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” Coupled with the news reports earlier this month that Abramoff had completed his prison sentence at a Baltimore halfway house, it makes the film a little too déjà vu all over again.ĭirected by George Hickenlooper, who died from an accidental drug overdose at 47 just a few months before the film’s release this week, “Casino Jack” uses some conventions more often employed by documentaries. The biggest? It was beaten to the punch line earlier this year by Alex Gibney’s very fine documentary, “Casino Jack and the United States of Money,” which audiences didn’t much want to see either. If a fast-talking manipulator of political egos wasn’t hard enough to make appealing in the way of, say, Michael Douglas’ “Wall Street” abuser, other problems faced this fictionally flip tale. But even with Kevin Spacey trying his carnival barker hardest in “Casino Jack,” it still feels too painfully close to find much humor in Abramoff’s now legendary, and illegal, lobbying efforts. Maybe in a few years the high-flying machinations of notorious Washington puppet-master Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, his partner in crime, will be funny.
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