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| Casino |
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  (9/10)
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Runtime: 178 |
| Public Rating: 9.04 (159 votes) |
Director: Martin Scorsese |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Crime Drama |
Year: 1995 |
| Writer(s): Nicholas Pileggi |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Timotei Centea |
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The dream team is back, as Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi, the two masters behind Goodfellas, once again team up for Casino, an epic 1970's Las Vegas crime drama. The setting may be glamorous and rich, but in this seedy underworld of love and murder, ambition and loyalty, and murder and redemption, all bets are off.
Nicholas Pileggi's epic script follows Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro), a maverick mobster, comes to Las Vegas to take charge of the Tangiers casino, a kingdom of decadence, crime, and money. With him arrives his long-time friend Nicky Santoro (Pesci), a violent, volatile hit man who happens to be Rothstein's childhood friend. Together, they start shaking down the joints and taking control of the Las Vegas underworld. However, and as in all Scorcese movies, the characters are tragically flawed. Rothstein, against his better judgement, falls in love with a beautiful hustler, Ginger (Stone), and Nicky, obsessed with violence and drugs, spirals downward on a path of destruction until not only he endangers himself, but all of those around him. The story of betrayal, murder, revenge and redemption is classic Scorcese: tough, hard, fascinating and intensely gripping.
The acting is great. De Niro gives a charismatic performance as the smooth-talking Ace Rothstein, and Sharon Stone is ravishing and dangerously seductive as Ginger. However, with his character straight from Goodfellas, Pesci once again steals the show, giving us a man beyond any hope of salvation: violent, volatile, and downright psychotic.
The direction is also classic Scorcese. The gorgeous lights of the city of decadence come to life through the masterful cinematography of Robert Richardson (who also works on Oliver Stone's movies), and Scorcese's vintage camera style, full of stunning, fast-paced shots and brilliant editing give the film style and substance. Also present are some subtly executed freeze-frames and some ultra-close shots, as seen in Goodfellas. Finally, what would a Scorsese film be without a sizzling-hot soundtrack composed of 1970's hits.
Also present is the trademark Scorsese ultra-violence, as the film posseses the two most violent scenes I've seen in movies this far. One is a mob interrogation when a man's head is pressed in a vice, causing his skull to crack and his eyeball to pop out. The second is a very brutal and very graphic beating of a man with aluminum baseball bats, all filmed by an unflinching camera. It's very graphic, and while I understand that it's realistic, seeing it is not a pretty sight.
All in all, Casino is a very good film, worthy of being named in the same breath as Goodfellas and Godfather. Is it as good as those two milestones? No, but it's close, and that alone makes it worth seeing.
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