Overlooked Scorsese Crime Drama

Rating: 7/10 (27 July 2018)

Martin Scorsese certainly has shown an interest in crime stories. He explores the gritty details of the worlds and the players involved in the games. This particular story focuses on a particular gaming world-the one found in the gambling mecca of the United States, Vegas.
Appropriately, the movie is called 'Casino.' Throughout its three-hour runtime, it unpacks a great deal. The first 45 minutes or so lay the foundation. We're exposed to thorough details of how the gaming world in Vegas operates and what it takes to succeed in the business. It's fascinating. For a while.
My philosophy is if a movie is three hours long, it better have great reasons for being three hours long. This one felt like it could have been trimmed in a few places, but that didn't happen. Scorsese likes to make long films, so we're left with this monstrously long creation.
He takes his time, cuing up one Rolling Stones song after another, letting events play out at a leisurely pace. It's all interesting and well-crafted (because its Scorsese), but it takes nearly two full hours before the pivotal conflict arises. Before then, the characters' lives are bit too peachy, too easy.
Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci play childhood friends who take different business avenues in life, each finding success and power that they find appealing. De Niro wants to play it straight and run a legitimate casino, and he should-he's great at it. Pesci seeks the illegal angle, becoming one of the most infamous mobsters in the world of Vegas.
As I said, their lives run smoothly (for the most part) for too much of the story. Everything goes downhill when Pesci steps on one of the wrong gangster's toes, De Niro deals with legal issues over a gambling license, and the biggest doozy of all-De Niro's wife loses her mind.
In a force of nature performance from Sharon Stone, De Niro's screen wife Ginger becomes the most compelling and despicable character over the film's final hour-this is when Stone really starts to go for it. No spoilers here, so I'll just say that her reputation as one of the worst movie wives of all time is well-deserved.
As circumstances spiral out of control, Scorsese blasts a couple more Rolling Stones songs and opens up his bag of mesmerizing camera tricks. His catalog of film techniques can fill an entire book shelf on its own. His application choices don't always appear to make sense, but they certainly catch the eye, which may be the primary intention.
I'm a big fan of Marty's work, so I'll see anything he has made. While this isn't his best, it's still an entertaining and worthwhile film.