Owning Mahowny

"Owning Mahoney" tells of a bank account manager and pathological gambler who lives from one wager to the next on a collision course with oblivion. A powerful and compelling tour de force by Hoffman - who once again proves he ranks among the actor's actors with the likes of Brando, Pacino, and Nicholson - this engrossing film claims to be a true story of a man, money, and an obsession of remarkable proportions. A worthwhile watch for Hoffman fans and anyone into character studies, particularly of obsessive-compulsive types. All others stay away. (A-)

This is based on a real story that happened in 1980-82. Dan Mahowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is the youngest assistant manager of a major bank branch at the heart of Toronto's financial district. Little does anybody know, he has a gambling addiction. He uses his position to steal millions to feed his gambling habit.

This is all about Philip Seymour Hoffman. He is amazing. He isn't just a great co-star. He is the lead. He is the star. And he is compelling. He's been great as the brilliant actor's actor for many years acting beside some of the greats in some great movies. Two years after this, he will win best actor for his own great movie 'Capote'.

The style is strip down. PSH has those 80s glasses. Mostly there is his desperation and his obsession. Minnie Driver goes blonde and I don't really recognize her. Maury Chaykin is great as the bookie.

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!

This is a pretty safe and unremarkable project in many regards. The story is appealing as a sort of funny anti-hero, a resourceful guy with an uncontrolled urge to gamble. He steals so he can feed is habit, and everybody around him has money-related interests except himself. It's made more interesting to follow because it's based on a real story, and apparently it follows it quite closely.

Technically it's as good as most of Hollywood makes, competent in every aspect except direction, which is flat and dead. No defined camera stance, merely the basic representation of what's happening.

But nothing of that matters because who the camera frames almost always is the late Seymour Hoffman. And that is more than enough. Every movement counts, every restrained facial sign shows something. He was really a method student, but i suspect he didn't have to search very deep to get to his characters. His most remarkable characters all live in their own world, tormented by uncontrolled urges, in pain by maladjustment to an unforgiving unfit world. His pain was real in every character of his, he just channeled it each time to a different character, to a different world, to a different misfit quirky corner of the world.

It's an extra pain to watch each one of his movies now, when we know we won't see anything new from him ever again, and we understand that not so much of what he showed us was acting, faking on a stage, but instead was the masking of a real pain. Or it could be the other way around. It could be that, in a tragic sense, the high standard that Hoffman proposed for his own craft drained and exhausted the real man so much that he was left in the limbo between his full creations and the emptiness of the somehow unfulfilled real life, whatever that might be.

It's not difficult to watch this film now, and map the gambling urge of Mahowny to the addictions of Hoffman in the real life, and understand that the "just a few more minutes" could in fact be the few more minutes he always requested from himself.

watch this, the film won't change you, but Philip S. Hoffman will.

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 ****.