4 stars (out of 5)
By R. Kurt Osenlund
An e-mail message appears on the screen at the beginning of “Casino Jack and the United States of Money,” Alex Gibney's overwhelmingly informative documentary about the career and downfall of infamous Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The e-mail – one of many that Abramoff apparently typed and sent with reckless abandon – reads, “Why would you want to make a documentary? No one watches documentaries. You should make an action film!” One eventually gathers that the message must have been written around the time that Abramoff, also a former film producer, nixed the notion of peddling a documentary about a GOP summit he hosted in Angola, and instead reimagined the events in the form of “Red Scorpion,” the 1989 Dolph Lundgren actioner and alleged vehicle for Abramoff's freedom-fighter fantasies (of the film's copious setups and subplots, this is one of the most entertaining).
An e-mail message appears on the screen at the beginning of “Casino Jack and the United States of Money,” Alex Gibney's overwhelmingly informative documentary about the career and downfall of infamous Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The e-mail – one of many that Abramoff apparently typed and sent with reckless abandon – reads, “Why would you want to make a documentary? No one watches documentaries. You should make an action film!” One eventually gathers that the message must have been written around the time that Abramoff, also a former film producer, nixed the notion of peddling a documentary about a GOP summit he hosted in Angola, and instead reimagined the events in the form of “Red Scorpion,” the 1989 Dolph Lundgren actioner and alleged vehicle for Abramoff's freedom-fighter fantasies (of the film's copious setups and subplots, this is one of the most entertaining).
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