"AMERICAN CASINO IS A POWERFUL AND SHOCKING LOOK AT THE SUBPRIME LENDING SCANDAL.
IF YOU WANT TD UNDERSTAND HOW THE U.S. FINANCIAL SYSTEM FAILED
AND HOW MORTGAGE COMPANIES RIPPED OFF THE POOR, SEE THIS FILM."
– Joseph Stiglitz. Nobel prize-winning economist

“FASCINATING! A TERRIFIC documentary chronicling the subprime-mortgage mess and the financial collapse of the past two years…
With a rare cohesive power, the Cockburns fill in the lines of connection. They function a little like Raymond Chandler as he traces the corruption
that produces, at the end of a long chain of circumstances, the lady in the lake... The movie is a lucid and comprehensive picture of a rotten system.”
– David Denby, The New Yorker
Click here to full review

“Aerial shots of decaying properties suggest an unfolding real-life version of a horror film, meticulously structured.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“Authoritative, far-reaching.” – Jim Ridley, Village Voice

“Leslie and Andrew Cockburn's searing expose of the subprime mortgage crisis matches Wall Street's numbers and graphics
to the flesh-and-blood individuals whose lives have been devastated by the deliberate machinations of bankers and traders.”
– Ronnie Scheib, Variety

“No heist thriller could ever compete with this probing documentary about the subprime mortgage scandal and the financial industry’s
greedy embrace of a $12 trillion taxpayer bailout… (by) longtime muckrakers Andrew and Leslie Cockburn...
The movie manages to get its arms around a complicated story that constitutes one of the great moral outrages in U.S. history.”
– J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

“An often devastating history of the greed, cynicism and short-term myopia that got us all into this current mess.”
– Kevin Lally, Film Journal International

“A revelatory howl against the still-gestating, $8 trillion-and-counting financial-services industry bailout.” – Bill Weber, Slant Magazine online

Investigative reporters Leslie and Andrew Cockburn have spent nearly 30 years uncovering major stories (for PBS, CBS Reports, 60 Minutes, et alia), but with AMERICAN CASINO they take on the biggest economic crisis of our lifetime: the subprime mortgage meltdown that has caused more than a million Americans to lose their homes. The Cockburns interview Wall Street wizards who are as nervous about revealing their identity as any mobster in the witness protection program; they rewind to Phil Gramm (R, Texas) calling us “a nation of whiners... (facing) a mental recession”; they replay Alan Greenspan’s admission that his ideology was “flawed”; and they put a human face on the victims of bankers who targeted minority communities with no income verification loans, adjustable rates (that adjusted upwards, dramatically), and complex language that even the pros can’t fathom. Out of this mess, the filmmakers build a case against those who used government deregulation to make a fortune for the few and create havoc for the many.

Directed by Leslie Cockburn • Produced by Andrew Cockburn and Leslie Cockburn • USA • 2009 • 89 Minutes • An ARGOTPICTURES Release

• Official website
• Listen to our podcast: Q & A with filmmakers LESLIE & ANDREW COCKBURN (Recorded September 2, 2009)