odds in favor of Marty fans....

Rating: 5/10 (16 March 2011)

"Goodfellas" takes Vegas sees Scorsese's usual players meandering their way through the expected labyrinth that is Lost Wages, Nevada. The mob portion is kept very brief near the front end, with DeNiro then heading West to man a mob-run casino. There's your basic dealings with skimming, teamsters, the feds, cheats, and whatnot. Pesci is then thrown into the mix as an enforcer to keep everybody who threatens DeNiro, in line. For good measure Stone arrives as an all-flash bimbette who placates well-to-do men with her wiles.
My main problem with the film lied mostly in the Scorsese going shockingly against type. First, we have one of the most passive DeNiro performances of his Marty career, as a (Jewish??) guy I kept screaming at to take some freaking action. He allows those who pose a threat to his world to just walk all over him at an alarmingly high rate. Namely, Stone, whom he inexplicably has some undying love for, despite her personality not going beyond a hot blonde of opportunity. That he could be so incessantly forgiving, made me nuts. I kept praying for the explosive Bobby D. we all know and love to show up, but he never arrived.
Then you have Pesci, basically aping his own "Goodfellas" character, as a leprechaun-esque tough guy whose main fear-striking device is drop F-bombs at top volume. Or kicking the sheeyit out of guys as long as he (Pesci) has others there to watch his back. At least his character takes an unexpected turn that we're told is a huge no-no in the mob culture.
People have always been vastly divided on Stone; some hated her, some were surprised and vaunted high praise. I was pretty much on the fence with her, as her two-note (sexy or drunk) offering had your standard indifference to it.
James Woods is wasted (and realizing who his co-stars were, seemed to go into Pesci mode for the one scene he was allotted), Rickles and Smothers are thrown in for some Vegas flair, with your usual assembly line of reliable Scorsese Italianos rounding out the supporting roles.
Then there's Scorsese himself as they guy at the helm. I've never really been a fan of forced or tortuous violence in a film (the Freddys and Jasons were always quick about it), but where was it here??? Where's the Marty Scorsese of old who covered his filmstock in off-putting gore? The fact that he (finally) shoehorns in some toward the last reel was a real let-down.
The film hardly drags, and the narration was an acceptable technique, but in the end I couldn't have cared less whatever happened to any of these people. Unlike "Goodfellas," where, though the main characters were "villians," I felt so awash in their journey by film's end, that you feel you've really been taken to another place by the actors. Casino, not in the slightest.
At the very least Joe Bob Briggs had more than one scene. Because the drive-in will never dah!