Critic Reviews

• Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com

  The Cockburns paint a picture of a financial world devoid of morality and scruples, a culture in which reckless disregard of reason and caution led to a towering house of cards that could only come crashing down.

• Dan Kois, Washington Post

  As Leslie Cockburn's camera roams the foreclosed rowhouses of Baltimore, their planked-up doors reminiscent of shots from The Wire, I thought: Baltimore needs some good PR.

• Mark Feeney, Boston Globe

  Much of the final two-thirds of the documentary can have a TV newsmagazine feel: solidly presented, but not shaped to a larger end. As self-righteousness sets in, however justified, so does a certain artistic slackness.

• Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

  The documentary details in no-nonsense, talking-head style how commercial and investment banks moved high-risk mortgages out into the economy, dumping debt and reaping profits in the process.

• Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

  A lopsided, visually uninspired film that works best when it eschews the complex numbers-crunching of its financial industry pundits and whistle-blowers to profile the everyday victims of the crisis.

• Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

  This film stands as an intimate, terrifying document that renders an incomprehensible slice of recent history in human terms.

• Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun

  It's a nightmare that starts like a normal daytime drive and ends in a vortex-like sinkhole.

• Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix

  Putting a face on the incomprehensible figures, the film takes a look at some of the victims, middle-class professionals who bought into the dream of home ownership and lost everything.

• Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl

  If there's an overarching theme it's that people respond to incentives and so regulation of the financial market is necessary to see that the incentives offered are not perverse.

• Gary Thompson, Philadelphia Daily News

  It may be a little too Jack Webb for the masses, but there is value to its sober, just-the-facts approach.

• Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics

  The best look to date at the rotten US housing mortgage system that developed over the last ten years. Clear enough to make you cry.

• Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

  Essential viewing for understanding how banks systematically targeted low income groups in over-leveraged mortgage lending practices that led to a catastrophic economic collapse, "American Casino" is still a far from perfect documentary.

• Matthew Nestel, Boxoffice Magazine

  The piece finds a balance between the tearjerkers caught in the crossfire and the reckless bidders who don't seem to feel troubled for the life of excess at the expense of others.

• Geoff Berkshire, Metromix.com

  Has the feel of a quickie made-for-TV doc. It's bare bones ... but timely.

• Scott Tobias, AV Club

  The film doesn't come to life until too late in the game, when it takes the original tack of exploring the housing crisis through abandoned backyard swimming pools...

• Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

  A riveting and multidimensional examination of the subprime mortgage meltdown and its devastating impact on homeowners from poor African-Americans to wealthy Californians with swimming pools.

Read all 16 critic reviews