American Casino – The Documentary
…. By January 2009, the U.S. Government had pledged over $8 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers to bail out Wall Street. Most people would like to know why!….
“American Casino is a powerful and shocking look at the subprime lending scandal. If you want to understand how the US financial system failed and how mortgage companies ripped off the poor, see this film”…. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist
“American Casino”—a terrific documentary chronicling the subprime-mortgage mess and the financial collapse of the past two years”…….. The New Yorker
“A meticulously structured film”…. The New York Times
As the reviews above have stated American Casino is a documentary by Leslie & Andrew Cockburn that is paraded on the disastrous financial scandal where the United States had pledged a whopping $12 trillion to bail out Wall Street and $18.4 billion was given out as bonuses last year in Wall Street. The story involves shocking images of polluted and abandoned swimming pools in South California.
In Riverside County some landlords forced into foreclosure have switched off their pool pumps, making it a breeding place for mosquitoes, but they have also filled up the spaces with toys and other random trash. Some of the residents have even driven their vehicles into the pools. But why? Jared Dever, a gentle-voiced regional officer who sprays the polluted water with chemicals and pesticides to destroy mosquito larvae, claims that it might be a selfish retaliation.
These decaying, junk-filled dumps are also petri dishes for rodents and insect-spread diseases. Yeeessh! Some other abandoned houses turn out as meth laboratories and private marijuana farms. There are more aerial shots of contaminated properties that suggest an unfolding real-life version of a horror film with wriggling maggots threatening to overrun a suburban paradise.
Director Leslie along with her husband and co-producer Andrew, begin this squirmy yet mind-blowing documentary on the Wall Street where various whistle-blower types talk about the cloud of greed and negligence that caused the financial meltdown. The documentary is quiet moving and it does not leave viewers assuring that the worst is over… the corrupted gambling hole that Wall Street turned out into in the last 15 years may have emptied many of its players. But if the financial situation stabilizes there is a huge possibility of the operations resume again.
Wow! One of the best documentaries I’ve watched so far! Well, life is a gamble and we’re the players…