OWNING MAHOWNY: Now we know why our bank service charges are so high!

  The plot of Owning Mahowny is simple.  Addicted gambler works at a bank.  As he loses more and more, he starts to skim money off his accounts and uses it to feed his gambling habits.  By the time he’s caught, he’s embezzled over 10 million dollars.  It’s a disturbing movie, and the reaction of many people to it would be that it’s not real and could never happen.  

  Well, get ready for a shock.  It DID happen.  And according to the real life principal and the author of the book about it, the movie sticks closely to what really happened.  

  This is a scary movie.  Not scary in the sense of a horror flic.  But scary in the sense of what an addiction like gambling can do to a person.  Dan Mahowny is a loser.  He has no personality and no clue how to dress sharply or appropriately.  How the man has a girlfriend is beyond me.  How that girlfriend stays with him through what he does is a miracle.  Presented with the opportunity to live in style in Atlantic City, and offered the services of the best women the casino has to offer, Mahowny turns down both, saying the only lady he’s interested in is Lady Luck.  I'm not saying it would have been right for Mahowny to bed down with a hooker and cheat on Belinda, however it's obvious the extent to which his addiction has de-sexed and neutered him to the point of complete and total disinterest in any and all female companionship.   Mahowny presents as the classic compulsive gambler:  as is stated in the movie, it isn’t winning that turns him on.  It’s winning so he can ultimately lose it all.  

  Mahowny’s personality is obsessive, almost beyond belief.  Like the alcoholic who needs a drink, or the drug addict who requires heroine, Mahowny NEEDS to place that bet.  Control is something he has none of.  And of course, denial is at the centre of his addiction.  As he’s standing in the shower talking to Belinda,  he says “I don’t have a gambling problem.  I have a financial problem.”  One feeds the other.  Mahowny is a pathetic character, indeed.  And because there’s no emotion, we don’t really feel sorry for him.  Instead, we find ourselves calling him a loser and a bum.  

  There’s no question that this is a good movie.  It’s well shot and brings you right up close and personal to a guy with a HUGE problem.  But before you see it, decide what you want your movies to be.  I found it a really uncomfortable watch, as well as disturbing.  Kind of like the fascination you have in watching a train wreck, knowing it’s going to happen, but being unable to do anything about it.  

 

9 out of 10