In the fact-based Owning Mahowny, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Dan Mahowny, the youngest assistant manager at one of Canada's largest banks. A figure of few words and fewer distinguishing character traits, he's the classic man in the gray flannel suit–or he would be, if gray flannel fit into his budget. Taking frugality to its extreme, Hoffman dresses in cheap clothes, carries a tattered briefcase, and drives an exhaust-spewing car at least 10 years past its prime. Why spend money on such niceties, after all, when doing so would only cut into his gambling funds? As the film opens in 1980, flashy bookie Maury Chaykin happily relieves Hoffman of most of his money. But when the money starts to run out, Hoffman begins resorting to desperate (if easily concealed) measures to keep afloat, skimming from other people's withdrawals and creating fictitious clients with deep wells of credit. Weekend trips to an Atlantic City casino overseen by the vampirically dapper John Hurt earn Hoffman the nickname "Iceman," both for his unbreakable concentration and for his inability to submit to any form of pleasure but gambling. (Given his choice of anything the casino offers, officially or otherwise, he demands only a plate of ribs and a Coke.) Working from a screenplay adapted by first-timer Maurice Chauvet from Gary Stephen Ross' true-life account Stung: The Incredible Obsession Of Brian Molony, director Richard Kwietniowski structures his film as a gradual descent into compulsive self-destruction, as Hoffman works his way into one of the largest one-man bank frauds in history. Though the form feels familiar, Kwietniowski fills the margins with wry humor and colorful characters, displaying in Owning Mahowny the same shrewd observational skills he used in his previous feature, Love And Death On Long Island. Hoffman reflects that skill with his performance as a man who's quietly arranged his entire life to accommodate his habit. He even seems to have selected a girlfriend (Minnie Driver, wearing what looks like one of Dave Foley's leftover Kids In The Hall wigs) based on her passivity and her willingness to overlook and excuse what he can't explain away. Another actor might not have been able to carry the film, given such a creepily monomaniacal character, but Hoffman lets the humanity soak through, registering split seconds of panic when he's on the verge of getting caught, then just as quickly creating and working a new plan. Moreover, he conveys an almost existential, if not physical, sense of his need to gamble, as if meaning itself could be found in the rolling dice. Whether he does or doesn't win seems almost irrelevant, since, as one character observes, he wins "so he has the money to keep losing." Kwietniowski and Hoffman don't reveal any answers, but they do discover a clumsy, tragic beauty in the purity of Hoffman's vice.