Owning Mahowney (2003)

I originally went into my local Blockbuster on Thursday hoping to rent either Jersey Girl or The Ladykillers. Unfortunatly, both were completely out and I needed to use my movie pass on something. While browsing the isles, I found their only copy of Owning Mahowney which I had been wanting to see just because it's lead was Phillip Seymour Hoffman, whom I have a huge respect for.

I didn't expect to be as blown away by the film and Hoffman's performance as I was. This film is GOLD.

The film is based on the true story of Dan Mahowney. He was a banker in Toronto in the early 80s. Everything is going his way. He has a great girlfriend (unrecognizable Minnie Driver), has just bought an apartment, and he just recieved a promotion. The unfotunate part of his life is that he has a huge gambling problem. He makes trips to Atlantic City almost every weekend. He owes about 10,000 dollars to some loan sharks and he doesn't know what to do.

What else can he do? He starts taking out money from the bank, borrowing under other people's names. He starts spending so much money in Atlantic City that one of the casino owners starts giving him the royal high roller treatment.

The film then follows from there into Mahowney's denial of his problem and the subsequent fall even more into debt by the millions. As I mentioned before, I've always been a huge fan of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He just seems to add "something" to films. He is by far an acting force to be reckoned with and is at the top of his game here. The scenes where he is gambling are magic! He doesn't have to say anything. You can read everything that is going on inside his head just from his eyes and his mannerisms. This is quite possibly the best acting I've seen all year.

The directing of the film was also amazing. Some of the scenes had me wanting to pull out my hair due to the tension. The climax hit me fairly hard as well. I was so feeling the euphoria of that scene. Lets just say I was 100% tuned into this film and it's whole "vibe". Ocassionally I would be thrown out of the film for a moment by looking at the backgrounds too much. Sometimes the casinos looked just a little too sparse and definently made me aware at just how independent of a film this was.

Overall, this film is amazing. Well worth the rental price. It is smart, entertaining and heart breaking. Hell, I'm even gonna say this film (to me at least) was better than Casino.

9/10