In a well-scripted and well-casted film, Owning Mahoney examines the addiction of gambling, with an assiduous detail to the banking world and its clandestine operating procedures to avoid, intuitively, banking fraud.

In a similar vein of Rogue Trader (1999) though with greater storytelling, Owning Mahoney reveals to us a concealed world of high-financing; of million dollar bank lines of credit which can be asked like a consumer would for their credit card company to increase their limit. It is here where there is the opportunity for rogues to abscond with years of productivity, which requires such secretive restrictions on who is permitted to promote themselves unto more and more risks with other people’s monies.

Mahoney, on the surface, is a competent professional, with a good going. He has a cute girlfriend who works on the first floor, as he makes his way to poshly polished wooded tables with Toronto’s uber-productive families demands for productive purchasing power. His arbitrary authority granted to him gives leeway to siphon money in the interim of loan disbursements in order to fund his illegal gambling on sports – at first.

And this is where we immediately find him in the first 15 minutes of the film: he is in debt to his bookie. The facade of a competent professional with a savings account, with a hefty early 80’s salary and limitless opportunities within the high-brow commercial bank, is shattered with the sleazy jew who eeks out a life making bets with people. It is when Dan turns to desperation that the embezzlement program begins, and the film makes its way into entertainment.

There is a fine balance in watching a character destroy himself which the screenwriter, Maurice Chauvet, does a wonderful job presenting. We do not experience a sickening to the point of cringeworthy spiraling out of control of a man too clever for his own good locked into a spiral of gambling debts. There is balance in the portrayal of the Atlantic City casino which is superbly depicted with celebrating the bank thief, not minding where he gets his money, only that he continues to game. 

Soon, a debt of 10K in CAD (equivalent to 32K today) spirals into losses of over 100K because of the ease of transacting with banking client’s monies, and pretend lines of credit which are “peanuts” in the infamous Deutsche Bank CEO’s words when speaking about 50M Euros…Mr. Mahoney simply needs to escape internal auditing suspicions, which he ironically claims he is “lucky” to succeed at pulling off. To the point of willing himself to Las Vegas and the regression to the mean – where his losses turn into profitable gains.

Of course, such a behavior is not one that can simply “stop” when one recovers, with surpluses. The point of the mania – and the film in no way assesses what the point is, as he has no pretensions for luxuries…he is, as the Atlantic City casino calls it “iceman”… – is in the thrill. It is in the selfish ride itself, of the highs and lows, wherein Mahoney explains to a well-plotted psychologist counselor that his gambling was 5x as fun as his most intense life experience. 

It is here wherein a man with no soulplan moves onto a world which desires his money, irrespective of where it comes from. And he is thrilled to go along for the ride.

But what about his personal relationships, particularly with his girl? The film excellently portrays the confrontation of addiction, but not of the disheveled appearance of those who lead into dysfunctionality. It is a problem that ultimately makes the person blind to how selfish their mania is, at achieving what promise? Just a fix. Until the next gratifying reflex of the brain.

The film passes no judgment on the mechanics of the casinos making efforts to collect another 250 grand from Mahoney, or the dark paths people will lead onto fulfilling such a gratifying need. It ends elegantly with a detective connecting the dots of a mediocre nobody finding the means to be a big spender, unto his sentencing. For again, it is not in the glamorous appeal of the vanity of being celebrated for being mammoth at mammon. It is in some hidden itch which needs to be scratched, to the point of absurdity. Societies must ask themselves how to channel such rushes at speculation appropriately? And the answer has already been turned in: the stock exchange.

Grade: A-