Owning Mahowny

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is without a doubt the best independent actor making movies today. I first fell for him when he played the Jaw Dropping low life shady character Allen in Happiness, and since then his career has only gotten brighter (or darker?). He personifies "creep", and in roles like the mattress man from Punch Drunk Love, I find myself wanting to reach through the screen and strangle him. Of course, he does it again in Owning Mahoney as Dan Mahoney a young assistant manager at a Toronto bank who uses other people's funds to repay debts and feed his gambling addiction. My dissatisfaction rises as he becomes more audacious and gambles away more and more of his misbegotten cash. You will find yourself yelling "QUIT NOW!!" at the screen, but his only reply will be "but i just got here". Dan Mahoney is possibly the simplest and most complex character I've seen Hoffman tackle. Is it the love of gambling that drives him to play $70,000 hands?? No, his facial expressions don't change from when he's up 9 million, to when he's gambled away his last $500 chip. His addiction has no purpose, it's almost as if he is doing this simply to survive. Hoffman wasn't the only gem in this picture, he was coupled with Minnie Driver who was almost unidentifiable with her dark rimmed glasses and bleached blonde hair (and not a bad Canadian accent eh?). It's too bad this film will probably only be seen by true independent film/Hoffman fans because it's intense and gripping. A slice of someone's life destroyed by addiction, this is a must see!

For anyone in Dan Mahowny's life who cared to look, all the signs were there. Bad hair, disheveled clothes, no overcoat in Toronto in winter, empty apartment and a '74 Dodge Dart. He should have had more but did not. He had everything the addict needs - a source of income, a source of his addiction and several "enablers" in his life.

Owning Mahowny tells the famous and true story of a mid-level bank manager at the CIBC, who in the early 80s, stole $10,000,000 from several high profile clients, and a few non-existent ones. All the funds were lost in Atlantic City and Vegas. But this is not a con movie, it is far more clever than that. It is a detailed and devastating study of a gambling addiction.

We all know that Mahowny will get caught, but how and when. He has no record, is not a criminal and he is well respected at his job. What this film does almost better than anything is reveals how the day to day events allows the protagonist to prolong his inevitable collapse.

As the film progresses, Mahowny becomes more and more paranoid. Every open file, every meeting and every phone call represents his potential downfall. Note how he maneuvers through key meetings and audits. But he is not afraid of getting caught, he is afraid of losing his lifeline to the thrill of the bet.

You just simply cannot say enough about both the leads in this film. Philip Seymour Hoffman is spot on perfect as Mahowny, focused on the next hand, rarely raising his eyes to the camera. John Hurt is also wonderful as the malevolent casino boss who is all too happy to take Mahowny's money and not care where it came from.

Had this film received better backing, Hoffman may well have received his first Oscar nomination. As it stands, you will have to seek this out on DVD. It is an edgy and well directed study in to the mind of an addict. Not perfect, but I loved this from start to finish. ***1/2 out of ****.

Interesting examination of a young Canadian bank executive who embezzles money to feed an insatiable gambling addiction.

Hoffman gives a yeoman's if not overly subdued performance as Dan Mahowny, and the film for the most part is a better than average watch. Strangely, the film plops you right into chapter 5 or thereabouts, and your left wondering who is this guy for the entire film. The motivation for Mahowny's odd behavior is never really broached. The film starts with Mahowny sports betting and playing for the usual small stakes, he then mysteriously falls off a cliff in his wagering amounts and we're supposed to swallow that it all stemmed off of a 10000 obligation? Then we're off to the races as he becomes this casino legend. Needed a little more development, and thats being kind.

The direction is clever, in particular the ironic use of scenes showing the symbiotic relationship of bank and casino. On the nay side, the small budget generates the expected technical issues, most glaringly, never once providing camera-work that remotely convinces you he's in either Vegas or Atlantic City. The casino interior shots aren't properly done to eliminate the claustrophobic soundstagitis, and the only exterior shots found in the entire movie, are blatantly in Canada. As example, there is a scene where Mahowny is contemplating life while standing on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean. Its so obviously a lake or even pond and not the ocean, that its borderline embarrassing. Finally John Hurt, who i really like, is given liberty to really ham it overboard. But believe it or not, I genuinely like this film, and do recommend it.

PS/ I don't care that what anyone says, the woman who hits him up for 100 bux in the casino is Sandra Oh.

`Some folks believe that everyone has a public life, a private life and a secret life.'

These are the opening words of `Owning Mahowny,' a fascinating real-life tale of a compulsive gambler whose life falls to pieces when he begins embezzling funds from the bank where he works in order to feed his obsession. Dan Mahowny's `secret life' became public in the early 1980's when he was finally arrested and convicted on charges of bank theft. Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has made a career out of playing sad sack, tormented souls, gives one of his richest performances to date as Mahowny, a mild-mannered man caught in the grip of that compulsive sickness known as gambling addiction. Minnie Driver plays his devoted girlfriend who loves Dan dearly but who cannot bear to stand by and watch helplessly as he slowly but inexorably destroys his life.

If the film were only about Mahowny's gambling problem, it would be no different from countless TV movies made on the same subject. What sets this film apart is the way in which writer Maurice Chauvet (working off the original novel by Gary Stephen Ross) and director Richard Kwietniowski make the background of the story as compelling as the foreground. The astute, observant script focuses as much on the ins and outs of the casino and gambling worlds as it does on the personal travails of its main character. Particularly intriguing is the way in which high rollers are followed and coddled by the casino owners using both high tech equipment like cameras and monitors as well as plain old-fashioned flattery, obsequiousness and deceit. John Hurt, in a brilliant performance, plays a smarmy casino operator in Atlantic City who will stop at nothing to make Mahowny feel at home in his establishment – all for the purpose of having his new found `friend' gamble away a fortune at his tables, of course. The film is, in fact, filled with interesting side characters, including a sympathetic bellhop, who befriends Dan and who tries to convince him to leave the casino he happens to work for; several of the petty loan sharks with whom Dan finds himself inextricably connected; and a whole host of law enforcement officials whose job it is to bring Dan in on grand theft felony charges.

The filmmakers have taken a laid back, subtle approach to their material. They allow the story to develop slowly, offering us the chance to get to know Mahowny and his world at an unhurried, leisurely pace. Since Mahowny is, himself, such a secretive, quiet character, it is appropriate that the film that bears his name should also reflect that quality of muted sadness in its pacing and tone. Towards the end, however, once the authorities begin moving in for the kill and we sense the inevitable grip of Fate tightening around this strangely likable character, the film becomes both highly suspenseful and immensely moving at one and the same time. What's fascinating is that we are always one step ahead of Mahowny in our understanding of what is about to befall him. As in all great tragedies, it is the Cassandra-like burden placed on the audience – that of being able to see the future with no hope of doing anything to prevent it – that gives the film its air of pervasive sadness.

`Owning Mahowny' is a beautifully written, directed and acted film that opens up for us a strange and fascinating world.

I'm not sure that it was a fantastic movie, but it really sticks with me. I gamble quite a bit too, and I regularly see Mahoney-like behaviours at the casino. The guy next to me the other day started with $200, then went up, in my eyes undeservingly, to about $2500, and finally lost it all in a matter of half an hour. The entire time completely without expression, like a gambler, like Mahoney. No matter what happens to a gambler in the short term, he knows that it is ephemeral. Unfortunately, the ephemeral losses are a bit bigger than the ephemeral wins, and the cumulative loss is what you are stuck with in the end.

I liked the way that Mahoney was so boring. As though the things that make life interesting for the average person and the things that make the average person interesting all pale in his eyes to the passionate communion that he has with the game.