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Movies Forum Index » Movie Reviews Forum » Review: Owning Mahowny (2003)
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| Shannon Patrick Sullivan |
 Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 5:04 pm |
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OWNING MAHOWNY (2003) / ** 1/2
Directed by Richard Kwietniowski. Screenplay by Maurice Chavet, based on
the book "Stung: The Incredible Obsession Of Brian Molony" by Gary Stephen
Ross. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, John Hurt. Running
time: 104 minutes. Rated AA by the MFCB. Reviewed on October 17th, 2003.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
Synopsis: Bank manager Dan Mahowny (Hoffman) is a compulsive gambler in
hock to his bookie (Maury Chaykin). Desperate, Mahowny defrauds his own
bank to get the money. Realising how easy this deception was, Mahowny
starts embezzling more and more funds, and soon makes a name for himself
at a casino run by Victor Foss (Hurt) -- putting his job, his freedom, and
his relationship with his girlfriend (Driver) all on the line.
Review: "Owning Mahowny" is a brave movie: it paints a serious addiction
not as a source of melodramatic victories and crises, but as an inevitable
force of nature. The result is a film which delves deeply into the nature
of the people involved, strongly favouring character over incident. Such
an approach demands much from the cast, and so it is fortuitous that this
movie has commanded the services of actors like Hoffman and Hurt. These
are performers capable of immersing themselves in a role -- of approaching
their characters as distinct identities, rather than as distorted versions
of their own personas. They are able to lend the audience a much deeper
appreciation of the complexities of their characters so that, for example,
Mahowny comes across not as merely an obsessed loser, but as a man so
caught up in the rush of gambling that the game has become an end in
itself. Many of the supporting players deserve similar kudos, such as
Chaykin in a delightfully cheeky role as Mahowny's ethical bookie. The
downside to all this, however, is that "Owning Mahowny"'s interest in its
protagonists is so all-encompassing that the events it portrays take on a
sterile, repetitive, often tedious pallor; the movie becomes almost
clinical in its dissection of its cast. As a viewing experience, then,
"Owning Mahowny" is less successful than as an academic exercise.
Copyright © 2003 Shannon Patrick Sullivan.
Archived at The Popcorn Gallery,
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html
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X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1208072
X-RT-TitleID: 1122175
X-RT-SourceID: 886
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X-RT-RatingText: 2.5/4 |
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