More influential than its given credit for being

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2009)

"Casino" is at its best when its essentially just a very stylish, masterfully done documentary on the history of Vegas and the back-room dealings with the mafia. The primary plot of the movie is good, but doesn't have the same kind of replay value and ultimately just above average.
The film's dramatic story is good stuff, but what's important about "Casino" is the overarching information it reveals about Vegas, and the amazingly sleek and fun way it does so. Nearly 15 years after Casino, the story depicted in this movie has become essentially the official version of the history of Vegas. It's assumed that something more or less like what's depicted in the movie is what really happened in Vegas from the 1960s and 1970s. Most people don't want any more information - Scorsese's version of history is good enough. And why not? Some of the fine details are wrong, but Scorsese basically used a feature film to unveil to the public for the first time a generally accurate history of organized crime in Las Vegas. In many ways this is what Coppola did with the Godfather - no, every fact isn't true in either film, but both create a narrative, the general gist of which the public accepts as the story they want to believe about a certain chapter in the history of crime.
The second reason "Casino" is so influential is purely stylistic. This movie is chock full of very indulgent, flashy scenes with very overt camera work, heavy narration, catchy music, busy scenes with dozens of characters at times, and generally a style that is very forceful and exciting. This sort of style seems to have become a mainstay of Hollywood films that were big-budget and looking for box office returns, but also wanted some respect from the critics. Some of the major films that fit that description over the next few years - Boogie Nights and Ocean's 11 pop to mind - hang their hat on scenes directed very much in the lavish, showy way Scorsese does so well in Casino.
Altogether, "Casino" stops just short of delivering on the promise of its stellar first hour. Perhaps Scorsese wanted to avoid reusing too many of the devices he used to wrap up "Goodfellas", but unfortunately, with Scorcese putting away the cinematic fireworks after intermission, I think people remember all of the excitement of the first half, and the second half is just a blur of the stars gradually heading downhill in the predictable ways. Still, with a first half like that, the full film can't help but be a classic, if an uneven one.