The director spoke to his subject a number of times while researching the film, but Abramoff - a federal prisoner, and involved in ongoing investigations to boot - wasn't allowed to appear on camera. Unfortunately, the one on-camera interview Gibney doesn't score is with Abramoff himself. What Gibney does imply, in making this a pivotal moment in the film, is that there is at least a moral connection between that kind of crime and the white-collar offenses committed by the rich and powerful - by Abramoff and politicians like Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, who was also convicted for his dealings with the lobbyist. The Boulis murder, which Gibney circles back to in the end, has no direct connection to Abramoff - although Abramoff's partner in the casino boat deal had ties to one of the alleged hit man. The narrative trots all over the globe, including stops for labor exploitation in the Marianas Islands, dealings with Russian mobsters, ripping off Indian tribes in the desert southwest, and jetting to Scotland for rounds of golf with impressionable politicians.

Then the director leaps back four decades, moving methodically from Abramoff's childhood obsession with the movies (which would eventually lead to a brief career making thinly veiled action propaganda flicks) to his time spearheading the national College Republicans movement, and from there to his role alongside Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist as up-and-coming warriors in the mid-'90s Republican Revolution - a set of associations that would help catapult him into the conservative elite.

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