“I don’t think most people really understood that they were in a casino” says award-winning financial reporter Mark Pittman. “When you’re in the Street’s casino, you’ve got to play by their rules.”

This film explains how and why over $12 trillion of our money vanished into the AMERICAN CASINO...

In December of 2000, congress passed the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which called for less regulation on Wall Street and, according to a former director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "freed Wall Street to essentially shoot itself in both feet." Eight years later, the US economy is crumbling, and trapped under its wreckage are the American homeowners and taxpayers.

Politicians love to talk about the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, but American Casino director Leslie Cockburn gets to the crux of the matter, eliciting candid revelations from defectors from Bear Stearns and Standard & Poor's and other high-level players in the subprime mortgage gamble. On the flipside, she gives a voice to the minority Americans on "Main Street"—a high school teacher, a therapist, a minister—who were the unwitting chips in this high-stakes game of chance. Scored to the tune of eloquent hip-hop numbers like "Foreclosure Song," created especially for the film, the filmmakers cruise past rows of freshly boarded-up homes in the mostly minority neighborhoods of Baltimore and Stockton, California. Here, foreclosure and property neglect have led to the spread of drugs, crime, and disease. And, lest we forget, Cockburn reminds us that it's the Main Street Americans who are now bailing out the financial institutions responsible for the fall.

"TERRIFIC! a lucid and comprehensive picture of a rotten system" THE NEW YORKER

"There’s a good documentary kicking around (American Casino) that connects the arrogant behavior of bankers in New York to the loss of homes and the destruction of neighborhoods during the economic meltdown [...]. Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” is something else—not a good movie or a coherent exposition of the meltdown [...]" THE NEW YORKER

"Shocking...real life version of a horror film, meticulously structured." NEW YORK TIMES

"American Casino does a better job (than Michael Moore) with the questions surrounding massive housing foreclosures." LOS ANGELES TIMES

"...Indeed, Moore is the General Motors--the old, powerful version--of the doc community. Other people make nonfiction political films, and good ones... But (American) Casino, which plays like a superior edition of the PBS series Frontline, can now be seen in just a few theaters. It seems that doc films can thrive only if they star Michael Moore." TIME MAGAZINE

"When it comes to documentaries about the Wall Street meltdown, don't let all the hype for Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story deter you from seeing a real gem of a movie, Leslie and Andrew Cockburn's American Casino". THE DAILY BEAST

"A more sober, less personality-driven companion piece to Capitalism: A Love Story [...]". THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

"When it comes to the intricacies of sub-prime mortgages and "exotic" derivatives, (Michael Moore) is far outdistanced by Leslie and Andrew Cockburn's heart-rending (and eminently accessible) American Casino." CINEASTE

"If you're gonna go see one documentary this Fall, go see American Casino". THE BALTIMORE SUN

"It’s a relief to see a minimum of huffing and puffing on such a hot-button subject" THE BOSTON GLOBE

"You won't soon forget the therapist at Johns Hopkins who counsels recently homeless patients who've fallen into depression or substance abuse -- and then goes home to her own bitter foreclosure fight". THE WASHINGTON POST

 

"If you haven’t yet figured out why there are boarded-up homes in your neighborhood or why so many people are out of work, then American Casino is a good place to find answers". THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

"American Casino shows how and why the meltdown

happened. It should be required viewing."LINCOLN JOURNAL STAR

 

"American Casino proves that understanding what caused the housing crisis and its effects on individuals, communities, and the economy isn't nearly as difficult as we've been led to believe. And to prevent this from happening again, it's vital that we understand how it happened and repudiate the failed ideology at its root". THE HUFFINGTON POST

"Authoritative, far-reaching." Village Voice

"An intimate, terrifying document." SALON

"Sensationally effective... You’ll never hear an economist explain derivatives again without thinking of the woman who walks away from the camera, weeping, as her mortgage broker refuses her check."NEW YORK MAGAZINE

“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

"The most powerful depiction of how the mortgage lending industry has ruined families, entire communities and our nation's economy. You must go see this film!"

Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan

"...you’ll work up a healthy desire to throw a brick through Hank Paulson’s window." TIME OUT CHICAGO

"No heist thriller could ever compete with this probing documentary." CHICAGO READER -Critics Choice

"Cogent, sharp and infuriating" NEW CITY CHICAGO

 

“A revelatory howl against the still-gestating, $8 trillion-and-counting financial-services industry bailout, Leslie Cockburn’s American Casino follows the money that changed hands, or account columns, at every step of the subprime home-loan scam.” SLANT MAGAZINE

 

Online Press Kit (PDF 297K)  
Stills (hi-res)