Old wine in new bottle

Rating: Null/10 (17 September 2011)

This film is admired by many and it certainly has its good points. Scorsese did his usual skilled job. DeNiro played a very different sort of character. Sharon Stone is excellent and Joe Pesci is, well, Joe Pesci. Like "Goodfellas" it is based on a true story. This time, the Chicago mob in Las Vegas. It has a number of effective scenes: Sharon's Stone's breakdown, the scene involving the two card cheats, and the brutal though richly deserved death of Joe Pesci and his brother. But the film left me cold. It could have been called "Goodfellas Go to Las Vegas". Scorsese, screen writer Nick Pileggi, and Pesci basically recreated what they did in the earlier film. Not a bad film by any means, but more like a warmed over meal that was great the first time but only good the second.