Owning Mahowny is based on the true story of Brian Molony who worked at a bank in Toronto and embezzled more than $10 million to feed his gambling addiction. In the movie Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the title role of Dan Mahowny. It opens with him arriving at work at a bank where he's just gotten a promotion to assistant manager. We learn quickly that he has $10,300 in gambling debts from bets at the race track. His bookie, Frank Perlin, wants his money and is not going to take more bets from him until his debt is paid. Dan's response is "What am I supposed to do? Go to the racetrack and watch?" That really says it all. Dan can't even conceive of not betting.
He needs money and conveniently he works at a bank and has new authority on loans. Dan forges some papers and gets money from the bank to pay Frank via a bank draft. Frank takes it but still won't take more bets until it clears. Dan gets more money from the bank and flies to Atlantic City for the weekend to gamble at a casino. This becomes a regular occurrence and Victor Foss the manager, played to slimy magnificence by John Hurt, tries to make his new whale happy. But Dan wants nothing other than to gamble. Another regular occurrence is that Dan neglects his girlfriend Belinda (Minnie Driver). What follows is the inevitable conclusion.
Unlike every other gambling movie I've ever seen, there are only a few shots of cards turning over to dice rolling or roulette wheels spinning. There are no shots of horses crossing a finish line and only one shot of a sports game. We're shown just enough to know what's being bet on but the outcome is shown on Dan's face. The director, Richard Kwietniowski, allows the movie to rest on Philip Seymour Hoffman's shoulders and it's a great choice. We see close ups of Hoffman, almost always dejected. He's slumped over and looking down, his head almost below his shoulders. Even when he wins he's in the same position. What the movie shows is it's not about winning but about making the next bet. When Dan doesn't have time to research his bets he puts thousands of dollars on all the home teams in the National League and all the away teams in the American League. Even his bookie is annoyed by this, calling it disrespectful to his business and to him.
I found the film completely riveting. It's similar to Michael Clayton in showing a character reaching rock bottom. But unlike Clayton, it actually shows the descent. This film covers 18 months but concentrates so much on the gambling (as opposed to the embezzling) that the time scale isn't particularly clear. To Mahowny it all blurs together into one bet after another. It's not an hour and 45 minutes of gambling shots. Dan has confrontations with Belinda and Frank and we see Victor try ever so hard to make sure his favorite customer keeps coming back. There are a lot of shots of Hoffman staring and I could keep watching that as often as Dan wants to place bets.
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