What more can be said?

Rating: 9/10 (29 April 2004)

While not a perfect film, Casablanca achieves what few other films have. It completely immerses the viewer in the era and the atmosphere, offering a journey to the ever distant (yet all too close) world of Casablanca, Morocco during World War II. It is the hope of thousands (if not millions) of refugees, yet for so many who live there it is a prison - a last, impossibly difficult gate to freedom from the war-torn European countryside.
In Casablanca is a night club, Rick's. It's a self-indulgent gambling, music and drinking joint that's a parody of the American dream in a foreign land. The piano rings with Sam's melodious delivery of universal themes of love, pain, and cheer. Below the surface is a circle of intrigue - few tell of their allegiance to the Allied cause, and yet fewer live to spread the word. Rick Blaine, the owner of the club, walks the fine line of neutrality.
Humphrey Bogart, in his portrayal of Rick, is no longer a character but an American icon. Many of his lines can be quoted, verbatim, by people who have never even seen this film. His cynical, callous, chain-smoking personality is a mask to hide emotion and protect himself from pain  this is clearly an archetype for countless characters since. His key philosophy is "I stick my neck out for nobody." Thus, the ultimate struggle of the film is not a frenzied firefight with Nazis or a an elaborate chase scene, but one man's struggle to define himself.
Many of the other characters in the film are equally interesting - Casablanca is a film of choices. Ilsa is a French dame who must decide between the man who will never forgive her and the man who needs her more than anyone else. Victor Lazlo, the leader of an underground resistance movement in Czechoslovakia, must make a choice between his love, and his sense of honor. Captain Renault is a Vichy officer who must choose between serving the winning side or his own true loyalty.
Casablanca is deserving of its near-universal and prolific praise. It is a film of memorable characters and lines, filled with subtlety and complexity. Once it grips ahold of the viewer, it never lets go. Aside from a bit of over-acting and some characters somewhat lacking in depth, it is a triumph of cinema.