Early in his documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money, filmmaker Alex Gibney shares an e-mail he received from super-corrupt superstar lobbyist Jack Abramoff: "You should make an action film." In a way, Gibney has: Casino Jack tells the weird, totally true tale of how Abramoff diverted millions of dollars in revenues from Indian casinos to the coffers of influential lawmakers and almost got away with it.
There are no shootouts in Casino Jack, but there is a mysterious, possibly mob-related murder; the principals in this story partake of some pretty lavish jet-setting to exotic locales like Saipan and Scotland, where they avail themselves of luxury resorts and golf courses; and Abramoff's bad behavior, in addition to being merely criminal, includes the sort of antics a lazy screenwriter might throw into a script to show a villain's callousness. Casino Jack could maybe use a Bond girl or two, but as true stories of political corruption and hubris go, it's pretty explosive as it is.
And as unbelievable tales go, it's also, sadly, wholly believable. Gibney -- who won an Oscar in 2007 for Taxi to the Dark Side, his exploration of the murder of an Afghan taxi driver at the hands of American soldiers -- is, right now at least, the hardest-working man in the documentary filmmaking business. He's contributed a segment on Sumo wrestling to the forthcoming Freakonomics, and his filmed version of Lawrence Wright's solo theater piece, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, is set to air on HBO. (He's also finishing up a film about deposed New York governor Eliot Spitzer.) Casino Jack is just further proof that Gibney is in the right line of work. He's a good storyteller, with a knack for ferreting out dry but important facts and weaving them into an engaging narrative. Gibney also seems to like people, even scoundrels -- which is probably a necessity when you're making a movie about Jack Abramoff.
Casino Jack opens with a fairly juicy murder: The 2001 shooting of Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, who until recently had owned the SunCruz Line, a fleet of gambling boats. Abramoff and an associate, Adam Kidan, had purchased the business the year before; Boulis still retained 10 percent, and his relationship with the new owners was strained. Later, Abramoff and Kidan would be indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges in connection with the SunCruz purchase, but that's hardly the beginning, or the end, of the bizarre ballad of Jack Abramoff. Gibney, characteristically, seizes on the right tidbits and pieces them together in an alluring, sordid patchwork: Abramoff was born in New Jersey but moved with his family to Beverly Hills at age 10. While watching Fiddler on the Roof at age 12, he was inspired to become an Orthodox Jew. After graduating from Brandeis University, in 1981, he became national chairman of the College Republicans, where he cozied up to fellow conservatives Ralph Reed (who'd later go on to lead the Christian Coalition) and tax-reform advocate Grover Norquist.
Both would play a part in Abramoff's unholy ascension, and Reed, in particular, would get caught in his downward spiral. But they're only two of the bit players Gibney has to pack into Abramoff's increasingly nutso story: After some dilly-dallying in Hollywood (he produced both the 1989 Red Scorpion and its 1994 sequel), Abramoff joined the lobbying firm Preston Gates & Ellis in 1994. His activities there included arranging luxury junkets for lawmakers to the Marianas Islands, to ensure they'd vote against U.S. labor laws that would restrict the garment industry -- built on sweat-shop labor -- that was thriving there. Tom DeLay was one of Abramoff's many friends in high places, and later, in 2003 (by which time Abramoff had joined another firm, Greenberg Traurig), he became House Majority Leader. Abramoff would also donate $100,000 to the Bush campaign that year: Maintaining expensive friends is, well, expensive.
Gibney packs a lot of information into Casino Jack, and while he lays out events and complicated involvements with surprising clarity, there's still a lot here to untangle and process. As I watched the movie I kept wishing I could draw a flowchart, with lots of arrows and circled names, just to help keep it all straight. But Gibney does present the unraveling of Abramoff's seediest money dealings, which involved siphoning dollars away from Indian casinos and directly into Congressional pockets, in a way that's pretty easy to understand. Abramoff was a slick charmer who, as one figure quoted in the movie puts it, "could sweet-talk a dog off a meat truck." He was also arrogant as all get-out, ultimately believing he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. He cooked up a hugely profitable kickback scheme with an associate, Michael Scanlon; they'd aggressively overbill their Native American clients while making fun of them behind their backs. In e-mails he exchanged with Scanlon, the keystroke-happy Abramoff refers to the Native Americans he bilked by a number of colorful terms, including "troglodytes" and "monkeys."
And yet when Abramoff's fall eventually comes -- and he drags several others, including DeLay and Ohio Republican representative Bob Ney, down with him -- it's hardly sweet. Gibney doesn't take gleeful pleasure in Abramoff's story, and that's not because the filmmaker thinks he's dealing with a good guy. Gibney is the kind of filmmaker who allows himself to feel some affection, or even just a wry appreciation, for his subjects, recognizing that that doesn't amount to approval of their behavior. And so when Gibney reaches the end, thus far, of Abramoff's story -- he's currently serving a prison term of five years and some change -- there's no sense of relief, no gloating, no staunch reinforcement of the idea that justice will always be served. Instead, Gibney's point seems to be that there will always be audacious people in powerful positions who believe they can get away with anything. When one does get caught, it's best not to spend too much time laughing at his antics. Our energy is better spent looking out for the next one.