Better than Goodfellas

Rating: 10/10 (13 August 2002)

SPOILERS!
Casino is the best "family" movie ever. The movie takes in Las Vegas,the gambling capital of the world. We follow the rise and fall of Sam "Ace" Rothstein,played by a brilliant(as always) Robert de Niro. He becomes boss of one of the biggest casino's in town,the Tangiers. As an old master gambler he knows all the tricks of the business,so that in a short period of time the Tangiers becomes the biggest Casino in Vegas. But then the problems start: first of all he meets a girl,Ginger played by a beautiful Sharon Stone and then an old friend comes to town to help him with the casino,Nicki Santoro(Joe Pesci in one of his greatest performances!). Nicki brings Ace into a lot of problems because of his aggressive way of solving things,like molesting a guy with a pen and putting someone's head into a vice. In the meantime Ginger can't keep away from drugs and booze while she also still has a relationship with a pimp,Lester Diamond(funny performance by James Woods).Above that all,she also starts to screw Nicki. At the end Ginger dies of an overdose,Ace survives a car bomb and Nicki(who set the car bomb) gets viciously murdered in the desert, he gets beaten with baseball bats and is buried alive.
casino is a beautiful movie about love,money and deceit in a sinful town. We get to see a great view inside the Casino and look at things that we otherwise would never get to see. The shots of Las Vegas are especially nice to watch,just look at one of the first shots of the movie,a great view over Las Vegas in the middle of the night.Here you can really see what a small city it is and that it is surrounded by absolutely nothing.
The performances by the actors are without exception high-class,especially the leading players:De Niro,Stone and Pesci. Joe Pesci is my favorite in this movie because of his quick dialogues and his unstoppable swearing. The directing by Martin Scorsese is as always flawless. His movies with Robert de Niro are of an unreached high level,just look at other films like Goodfellas,Raging bull,Cape Fear and Taxi Driver.
Although the movie can be really brutal at times(the scene in which Joe Pesci gets killed is really sick) the humor in some scenes are absolutely ingenious.Watch closely at the scene in which de Niro is behind his desk in his underwear and the scene in the grocery store with the old lady who can't her son swearing all the time,hilarious!
Overall,Casino is one of my favorite Scorsese movies and it is a shame that it is so underrated,also in this database. 10/10