GoodFellas in Vegas...it was better in New York

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2005)

Scorsese, De Niro and Pesci team up again for a GoodFellas rehash. Casino is not a bad film. But it pales in comparison to what has come before it. It would be much easier to applaud Casino if we could take it on its own merits. But the parallels to GoodFellas are so numerous and so obvious, Casino always leaves us wanting more. We've seen this all before and we've seen it done better.
Casino starts quite literally with a bang with a rather shocking car bombing before the opening titles have even rolled. It's a fascinating and highly intriguing opening but Casino never is able to sustain that energy. The film slogs along for three hours with the pace so slow that at times the movie seems to come to a dead stop. Scorsese has, even in his most brilliant successes, been criticized for the pacing (or lack thereof) in his films. Casino is a prime example of a Scorsese film that would have benefited greatly if the action could have been pushed along just a little bit faster. There's a terrific story here, top-notch acting performances and the typically brilliant Scorsese visual touches. What's missing is the energy a film like GoodFellas had. For all that Casino has going for it, in the end it's simply not entertaining enough.
After the shock of the opening sequence, Casino goes back in time ten years to tell the story of Ace Rothstein, as played by Robert De Niro. We see he is running, on behalf of Midwestern mob bosses, the Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. Through use of voice-over narration (a la Goodfellas) Rothstein, and later Joe Pesci's Nicky Santoro, explain how the money moves through the casino and into the hands of the mafia kingpins. As the story begins everybody's getting paid, everything's running smoothly, everybody's happy. When mafia tough guy Santoro, played wonderfully by Pesci who could do this type of thing in his sleep, takes up residence in Vegas things start to unravel. Santoro's a hothead, out to make a quick buck for himself. Where Rothstein had been free to operate his casino in peace, when Santoro starts stirring things up he brings unwanted attention from the authorities. Rothstein's wife, Ginger, is not helping matters by being constantly drunk, stoned or drunk and stoned. Sharon Stone plays Ginger and the character is such a train wreck it's hard to really evaluate Stone's performance. She's certainly convincing as a glamorous call girl early on, perhaps less convincing when she's forced to be hysterically screaming all the time.
Anyhow, Ace ends up having problems with the wife, problems with the authorities and problems with his onetime good friend Nicky. It's fascinating to see all the conflict swirl around him and De Niro is reliably brilliant in his performance as he deals with all the madness around him. Pesci is terrific and Stone is OK. Actors playing smaller roles also do noteworthy work. James Woods does well in a bit part as a man who is part of Ginger's past. Frank Vincent (GoodFellas parallel number 8,362 or thereabouts) settles into his mobster's role quite easily. And Don Rickles and Dick Smothers of all people have serious parts to play and each does a fine job. So, the acting certainly isn't the problem. The main characters, and some of the secondary ones, are wonderfully developed. Casino is beautifully photographed as you would expect from Scorsese. And the story is a good one, intriguing from beginning to end. It's in that long journey from beginning to end where Casino stumbles somewhat. It just takes too long to get where we're going and the film can't sustain the energy it opened with. A fascinating story, but in the end one that with a better pace could have been told in a much more entertaining way.