It is directed by Martin Scorsese, with a screenplay by himself and Nicholas Pileggi, all inspired by a nonfiction book by Pileggi. It stars both Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci, with Pesci as an ill-tempered mobster quick to resort to violence. It chronicles the rise to glory of a group of powerful mobsters, then chronicles their sudden and violent fall from grace.
The movie I’m describing here could be either Goodfellas or Casino, the two mob movies Martin Scorsese made in the early 90’s along with the help of Nicholas Pileggi. For this reason Casino is often jokingly referred to as Goodfellas 2, and deservedly so. They are made in incredibly similar styles. Casino takes the documentary style sometimes used in Goodfellas and runs with it until the legs give out. The similarity is something even Scorsese has acknowledged.
This does not mean Casino can’t stand as its own picture. It can, but to a point. There are moments that are brilliant here and rank up among the most fascinating sequences in any Scorsese film. It is also significantly overlong and has moments where it bogs down to a near-screeching halt. It’s still a blast to watch, however, and for me it has a sense of beauty to it that many Scorsese films don’t have. It captures the culture of the Las Vegas strip in all its sinful glory. The bright lights surround the characters, and eventually blind them.
Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert DeNiro) works for the mob as a sports handicapper, able to pick winners for just about every sporting event thrown his way. Since he is a natural winner, the mob chooses him to run the fictional Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. The audience is then treated to an incredible documentary-esque sequence where we learn the inner workings of the casino. We all knew the mob skimmed off the top, but this film knows every step of the process. We follow the money all the way from the money room in the casino to the nameless city of “back home”.
Casino is best with details, something Scorsese has obsessed over in his mob movies. It’s based on real events, with the “Ace” character based on the real-life Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. Every character is based on a real person, including Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro, based on Tony Spilotro, and Sharon Stone’s Ginger Rothstein, based on Geraldine Rosenthal. When Nicky moves down to Las Vegas to protect Ace, we are taken through a series of events that leads to tragedy. It all begins with one moment.
Ace watches from the security cameras, and at a table he sees a woman. To anybody else this is just another woman. Not to Ace. He falls in love at that very instant, and from that point on they are all doomed. This woman is Ginger, and though she does not love him back, for her this is her best opportunity to marry into money. A whole lot of money, as well. She becomes so greedy that she steals from everyone, doing what she can just to get ahead.
However, it is this love story where Casino does not work as well. I find Sharon Stone’s performance to be effective, but also overrated. She spends the film’s three-hour length repeating the same “I love you Sam, I don’t love you Sam!” notes with the appropriate profanity, but it grows tiring after a while. This may not be entirely her fault (it’s what the material calls for), but the Academy Award nomination she got was not necessarily earned.
Unlike Goodfellas, when the characters worked so well, here whenever the film tries to let us in it comes off as unnecessary and it slows the film down considerably. The script, if not the film itself, could have used some significant trimming. The documentary-type scenes are brilliant, but the love story and the deeper character moments don’t always ring true. This is a bit surprising to me, for Scorsese-penned scripts have often been focused on the qualities of characters first and foremost (Mean Streets, GoodFellas). I think the problem here is that instead of telling the big picture through a small group of people, Scorsese is trying to tell the big picture WHILE focusing on a small group of people. You can’t always have your cake and eat it too, and when you try to juggle this many balls you're bound to drop a few.
News flash: Martin Scorsese often makes violent films. However, Casino takes it to a level that is almost unnecessary. A man’s head is put in a vise, a hand is smashed with a hammer, people are shot to death (men and women), and many other tools are used as murder weapons, including a pen, and the scene in which baseball bats are used is one of the hardest scenes to watch in a gangster film. Usually Scorsese shoots violence in an abrupt and shocking way, but in Casino he makes it linger a little too long, and it stops being effective and becomes disgusting.
Casino is not Martin Scorsese’s best film, but it is certainly not his worst. It is overlong, to be sure, but in that time we get scenes that are captivating, some that are effective on an emotional level, but also some that drag on. We see the best and worst of Scorsese in this film, and that alone makes it worth checking out. It shows us people that were given heaven on Earth (which the cinematography captures perfectly), but it the end, as Nicky says himself, “we f----d it all up”.
P.S.- The use of narration here is unique in that it betrays an audience assumption about narration. You’ll see what I mean.
Summer of Scorsese
Original Post
Goodfellas
Taxi Driver
After Hours
Gangs of New York
Mean Streets
Casino
The Departed (My Favorite Movies)
Shutter Island (Review)
Up next: Raging Bull
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