The Town Will Never Be The Same

Rating: 10/10 (12 November 2003)

After films such as Cape Fear and The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese returns to his roots where this would be the final film of Scorsese's mob trilogy (his first two were Mean Streets and GoodFellas) before his prequel (Gangs of New York) in which we get to see Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent in their last collaboration with Martin Scorsese before adding DiCaprio to the mix. Life in Las Vegas will never be the same.
The film's prologue has Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro) going to his car where he narrates about sacrifices about love, than his car blows up leaving him flying in the air. After the credits have rolled with his body flying, we get to see Rothstein before his death smoking a cigarette where he narrates about how he ran things very successfully and that he was a bookie who changed the odds for everybody; also we are introduced to characters from Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) who is Ace's best friend watching his back and says they screwed up the whole plan to take over the casinos; Ace's wife Ginger (Sharon Stone) is shown as innocent until we get to know her later as a street hustler who robs men for their money and hangs out with her old pimp boyfriend Lester Diamond (James Woods).
The film is very different from GoodFellas and Mean Streets were both films talked about the territory of the mafia life such as nobody dating anybody different than their races; murders becoming an exception; damaging things when somebody doesn't pay; etc. Casino is more of a document on how organized crime controls what goes on in Las Vegas. It shows people in the account room counting money; all of the managers, dealers and bosses watching one another to see if they are doing their job, rob the rich people, take care of the high officials in the city and make sure that nobody tries to cheat in the casinos.
The character of Rothstein is a genius in terms of trying to take people's money and helping others get money. After his character is in charge of The Tangiers, Nicky narrates on how Sam got information on what went on with sports; he find out if the quarterback got his wife knocked up, if they did cocaine, crooked referees, even the wind velocity for the field goals. Nicky says, "The boys back home didn't care if he enjoyed himself because Sam was a cash register. All they had to do was ring the bell and take the money." The character of Nicky Santoro is like Pesci's Tommy DeVito from "GoodFellas" where they are volatile when not doing things their way. We see that in Nicky's character when a patron is verbally abusing Sam when all Sam asked was if the pen next to him was his, Nicky stabs the guy in the neck until the patron starts wheezing. Sam explains, "No matter how big somebody is, Nicky would take'em on." His appearance in Las Vegas worries Sam because he was going to be taking care of Sam along with his partner, Frank Marino (Frank Vincent) for which they scare most of the people away from Las Vegas and play their own game.
Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone) has been a call girl all her life for which she steals chips from her Iranian boyfriend while having a camera zooming in on her and is being watched by Rothstein. He goes to the craps table where he sees Ginger wanting more money from the boyfriend and than tosses the chips to the floor where Rothstein has fallen in love with the call girl. "In Vegas," he says "for a girl like Ginger, love costs money." Indeed it does, as Ginger robs Rothstein like Peggy would rob Al on "MarriedÂ…With Children" where she would take his money, when telling him that she is going to play some slots; Ginger also gets most of the employees on their knees as she drugs Andy Stone (comedian Alan King), one of the people working with the mafia; and gets most of the casino workers to give her things as long as she covers them; from clothes and cars, she had everything except her old boyfriend Lester Diamond who was a hustler stealing people for cash.
In a movie full of serious actors, there are three comedians playing supporting characters in this crime drama; Alan King is Andy Stone has I had mentioned, he works for the mafia in which he has conversations with them about how they should control Vegas; Don Rickles plays Billy Sherbert, the Casino manager who doesn't do much except waddle around and gets hit by Nicky; Phillip Green is played by Kevin Pollock in which his character is more of the reticent for which he can't do anything or say anything just because the teamsters gave him 62,700,00 dollars, it didn't mean anything as long as he pretended to be somebody big.
As much as performances go, the spotlight belongs to Sharon Stone in a great performance. Sharon has often portrayed the lured of affection for which we see her take her clothes off or try to appeal in a sexual situation. In Casino, she plays the character very mature and most likely will be her only serious performance; she'll be herself once we stop watching this film. Another spotlight belongs to Joe Pesci who won his Oscar for GoodFellas, yet he steals the show as a main character instead of a supporting character for which he gets to tell the point of view.
Casino proves to be another hit in the Martin Scorsese collection with an awesome soundtrack as its own theme, performances that shine, and bad guys that people like to root for.