American Casino

DIRTY POOL Badly maintained properties are one consequence of the crisis.

In case you’ve been asleep for the last 10 months, American Casino offers a decent refresher course on the financial meltdown, but what gives this homegrown doc an edge is the way it alternates between explaining the insanity of CDOs and chronicling the crisis’s impact on everyday lives. The film zeroes in on Baltimore’s heavily affected minority communities. Watching empty houses being boarded up, you’ll work up a healthy desire to throw a brick through Hank Paulson’s window.

• Now playing.
• More film reviews
•
• More Film articles