Casino

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2011)

Gargantuan epic(some critics and Scorsese fans considered it his "failed epic")about mob-run Las Vegas focusing on casino "boss" De Niro, his flashy junkie wife Sharon Stone, and volatile "muscle", Joe Pesci, how they had it all and squandered it due to their own faults and frailties. De Niro, without a legal license to run a casino, was able to run operations of a specific casino successfully with help from city commissioners, and, most importantly, major Midwest mobsters who skimmed from the "counting room" in order to allow him his opportunity to earn lots of money and live a life of luxury. Pesci was the mob's go-to-guy when they needed people whacked or kept in line, anyone who threatened to take from the mobsters what they considered theirs. Pesci is feared, but unstable and ill-tempered, and soon his presence in Las Vegas wasn't wanted, his criminal activities catching the attention of the police and FBI out to put him behind bars. Sharon Stone is alluring and attractive to De Niro, but she's involved with a lowlife pimp(played by James Woods)and unable to let him go. Stone has the looks and personality that benefits De Niro, helping him bring in the right kind of people to profit from in his casino. But her drug habits and alcoholism(not to mention, her inability to relinquish her love for Woods who is manipulating her to give him money behind De Niro's back)slowly over time ruin the marriage and this deterioration places her in the arms of Pesci! Scorsese's film is, as you'd expect, very detailed and the screenplay quite elaborate in the inner-working of the criminal enterprise ran by the mob who used wiseguys as their eyes and ears in Las Vegas. We see how De Niro and Pesci's personalities bring about their downfall, and Stone's addictions lead to a tragic conclusion. With all the money, clothes, and jewelry, Stone couldn't find happiness, agonizing in a joyless marriage to a man she never loved to start with. De Niro, as much as he was skilled at making money for his mobsters, couldn't help himself when it came to Stone and running such an efficient casino that he couldn't appease the city commissioner to allow his dumb-as-dirt brother-in-law(Joe Bob Briggs, inspired casting)a small position. Pesci's explosive, corrosive temperament, and unwillingness to play by the rules when it come to behaving in casinos, meant that he was doomed to eventually be discarded by his superiors. As was the case in GOODFELLAS, CASINO has startling scenes of brutal violence as the FBI get the pinch on a stupid mobster goon who gave up the names and subject matter of his people with the old-time gangsters setting in motion the executions of anyone who might rat them out. Watching the glamorous Stone unravel by film's end is disheartening and rather pitiable, going from elegant and stunning to washed-out and browbeaten, the drugs and booze turning her into a hobbling, malevolent, blabbering misfit. We see Pesci stab a man with a pen for cursing De Niro, shoot a woman while eating her supper, and bash poor Don Rickles across the face and skull with a telephone..it's not surprising what his character's outcome is. De Niro, though, because he's such a money-making machine, might escape a grim fate, although Scorsese opens the film with him in a car that blows up. Scorsese leans heavily on voice over narration from both De Niro and Pesci who explain the ways things were run in Las Vegas before the corporations took over. Clocking in at 3 hours, CASINO is certainly long-winded, and I'm not sure these are the kind of characters one wants to spend this amount of time with, but I found the story Scorsese brings to light compelling enough to withstand the entire journey.