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AMERICAN CASINO

Directed by: Leslie Cockburn
Running time: 89 minutes
Release date: September 2, 2009
Genre: Documentary
Distributor: Table Rock Films & Argot Pictures
MPAA Rating: N/R

The state of the collapsed U.S. economy has been front page news for several years. The financial meltdown, government bailouts and the remaking of economic policies are examined in this documentary. Scholar and filmmaker Leslie Cockburn depicts the subject matter of subversive economics in America, without an MBA in Business. However, this fiilmmaker has covered wars, revolutions and covert operations in almost every part of the world.

American Casino is filmed over a twelve month period. This outstanding work is rather easy to follow and comprehend. The film's index of players who are interviewed are an assortment of people who are easy to relate to. This is useful to the moviegoer as the professional terminology used is all highly understandable.

This is a tale of greed, fraud and ignorance, which spreads the blame of the mortgage crisis on crooked brokers, deceitful bankers and ambitious (if not illegal) insurance companies. The film takes the viewer on a journey telling how the regulatory environment created by the government is in part to blame. Government regulators (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.) and the regulators seemingly held the hand of lenders as they shelled out loans surpassing millions of dollars to unknowledgeable and irresponsible borrowers. Thus home buyers are to blame as well. Ignorance is no excuse when it comes to agreeing to terms that are out of their reach.

Rather than giving detailed information, this informative movie permits "everyday people" to form their own conclusions. It delves into the long line-up of crooks such as CDS issuers, rating agencies, bankers and insurance companies, and gives a fully understandable introduction to terms of CDO, MBS and REIT. Unfortunately, there are many long-winded stories, such as how minorities were prime targets for sub-prime loans to power the casino effect. The point was thoroughly made in this documentary. Many minorities lose homes, which in turn, empties neighborhoods and allows property values to drop. At this point the cycle of giving loans to buy homes and having the borrowers eventually default in mortgage payments continues.

Perhaps with more editing and analysis by the filmmaker linking critical issues, things would be more clearly linked. Completing the chain of these missing links would have resulted in a more comprehensive view of what caused the international economic disaster.

Overall, I found this to be an abundantly instructive documentary that will be informative to all who wonder about the who, what and why of America's economic dilemma.


FILM RATING (B)