The film's title is not so much in reference to the addiction that claimed a man as it is a warning and an invitation to embrace a collective shadow.
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05/01/03
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Owning Mahowny (2003)
78
%
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Reviews Counted:92
Fresh:72
Rotten:20
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: This story of addiction may lack the typical flash and glamour, but Hoffman makes Mahowny compelling.
Theatrical Release:May 2, 2003 Limited
Box Office: $726,886
Synopsis: Polite, mild-mannered Dan Mahowny is an assistant bank manager with a head for numbers, a knack for making decisions, and a devastating appetite for gambling. Dan Mahowny is the unlikely hero who... [More]
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, Maury Chakin, John Hurt
Director: Richard Kwietniowski
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Reviews for Owning Mahowny
With its protagonist relegated to the emotional sidelines the film coasts along on brisk efficiency, chronicling heedless self-destruction with a detachment that's positively glacial.
05/01/03
More of a character study than a drama, this engrossing film benefits from yet another carefully nuanced performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman as the titular Mahowny.
05/01/03
Mr. Kwietniowski's mellow and diminutive story of obsession lacks the tall-tale perversity of his previous Love and Death on Long Island.
05/01/03
Top CriticIn the acting department, there's nobody on the current scene with more sheer talent -- or offbeat charisma -- than Philip Seymour Hoffman, in whose bearish body nestles the heart of a lithe and limber artist.
05/01/03
Made interesting by the performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman.
05/01/03
The terrific concentration Hoffman brings to the part, his bi-play with Hurt, and the emerging presence of Driver as a woman whose love for a man remains undiminished go a long way to hold attention through a dauntingly elliptical plot.
05/01/03
Top CriticRichard Kwietniowski's deliberately paced film attempts to externalize the very internalized agony of gambling addiction. The results are only partially successful, depending much on your propensity for watching Philip Seymour Hoffman perspire.
05/01/03
Top Critic[Kwietniowski] tracks his lost hero's descent with a cool, precise visual style that’s humanized by Hoffman's unerring ability to seem at once dull, decent and out of control.
05/01/03
A fascinating look at addiction that's perhaps a little too clinical for its own good.
05/01/03
It’s clear halfway through Owning Mahowny that nobody with a need so consuming – and suits so ill-fitting – is going to come within 50 miles of redemption.
05/01/03
Hoffman has cornered the market on playing timid, badly dressed, mouth-breathing sad sacks ... yet it's easy to forget that what gives his loser characters such singular life is their deep-down obsessional fervor.
04/30/03
Top CriticClick to read the article
04/29/03
Top CriticIt's Hoffman's character study that centers the film..., but failing any real interest in the investigative side of the story, it does tend to lag noticeably in midpoint.
04/28/03
Hoffman brings this incredibly reserved character to vivid life.
04/27/03
The worst part of it is not losing his bets, it's that he has to pay off his debt before he can gamble again -- something like telling a bee it can't have pollen.
04/23/03
Who else could play the role of a guy both nasty and vulnerable like Philip Seymour Hoffman!
04/10/03
Entertaining and occasionally unsettling, but we never get under the skin of the protagonist, never learn what drives his addiction.
04/07/03
A searing story of addictive behavior.
02/20/03
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