On "Owning Mahowny" | Far Flungers
To many people around him, Dan Mahowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman) looks like an average good guy who works hard in a prominent bank in Toronto, Canada. Recently promoted to assistant branch manager, he is mostly well-regarded by his bosses for his impeccable work record. The bank trusts him enough to let him handle the accounts of several of their wealthiest clients. He also has a caring girlfriend Belinda (Minnie Driver), who works in the same bank. She's seriously thought about marriage, but Mahowny does not seem to think a lot about that even when they are about to live together. With his anonymous clothes, big glasses, and shabby car, this nerdy guy looks even plainer than his plain-looking girlfriend.
However, as told in the opening scene, Mahowny has a secret problem he has managed to hide from others. He is an addicted gambler, and he must take care of his large debt to his bookie Frank Perlin (Maury Chaykin) right now. Perlin is a sleazy guy who would welcome any money he can get from his gamblers, but he does not like visiting and pressing Mahowny. As a matter of fact, he is so sick of Mahowny's increasing gambling debt that he even considers suspending his dealing with Mahowny for a while.
Of course, Mahowny does not want that, so he resorts to stealing the money from his bank to clear his debt. At first, he steals only $10,300 through a fake loan application, but once he sees how easily he can steal money from his bank without any suspicion from others, his mind makes the next logical step; he steals more money and then flies to Atlantic City for a weekend of higher-stakes gambling and bigger thrills. This soon becomes his weekend routine as he steals and gambles more and more.
Based on a real-life story of a bank manager responsible for the biggest one-man bank fraud in the Canadian history (as mentioned in the film, he stole $10.2 million in total for his gambling), the movie is effective as a close, realistic look at gambling addiction, and it sticks tightly to its hero's view to give us a clear understanding of his addicted mind. Like any other kinds of addicts, Mahowny is constantly dominated by his addition, and we see how his daily life virtually revolves around it. At one point, he cannot afford to spend more time with his girlfriend because of another weekend in Atlantic City, and we also get an absurd moment when he hurriedly asks a bookie to bet on all the home teams in one league and all the away teams in the other league because he does not have enough time to bet on each game individually.
