Strangely satisfying

Rating: 8/10 (4 April 2001)

When I first saw this movie on the big screen when it was first released, I was overwhelmed, and not in a pleasant way. The only other Scorsese film I had seen in a theater was The Age of Innocence. Casino simply had too much dirty words, blood n guts, insanity, strife, drugs, and messed-up stuff in general for me to enjoy on an initial screening at a movie theater. The surreal lighting didn't help matters.
However, I recently watched it (on a much smaller screen) and liked it. Robert DeNiro's character, Ace Rothstein is likable, even though he could be a jerk. He never once hit Sharon Stone's character, Ginger, unlike Joe Pesci's character, Nicky Santuro.
SPOILER ALERT I guess what I liked about Ace is he never really changed, despite the fact that Ginger and Nicky agreed to the contrary just before one of their disgusting love-making marathons. He really was a tight-wad even before becoming big in Vegas, and he knew Ginger and Nicky were slime right from the start. He saw the good in Ginger, and that's what he was attracted to when he decided to marry her. She wasn't just a call girl to him. Unfortunately for her, she must have not valued that good in herself enough to stay out of trouble and stay alive. As for Nicky, when he first decided to come to Vegas he DID consult Ace. Ace's gut was against it, but he decided to agree because he and Nicky were friends. If Ace had trusted his instincts to begin with, he might not have gone through the same troubles he had. In the end, we see that Ace goes back to doing what he did before he "became big", which helps prove he never really changed- he just acted on his instincts in the environment he was in. He made some big mistakes, to be sure. But the beauty of it is, he didn't "play the game"- he was himself.
And basically, that's what this movie is about- an environent in a particular time. Ace, who, besides being an excellent gambler, really has no outstanding qualities and is something of an everyman, chronicles what it was like to be in his position in a way that people can sympathize with.
Ginger's demise is, to say the least, the most satisfying of the movie. I found nothing about her character appealing, except for perhaps the first scene in which she appears. From then on, she personifies fakeness, emptiness. It's really sad that the one person she kept running back to was such a sleazebag (James Woods).
Nicky's death was pretty tough to watch. The setting in the corn rows is creepy and the images are very grotesque.
Sharon Stone and DeNiro are suberb in this movie. The tension between them in certain scenes is incredible. It seems like some of the scenes are improvised, they're so dead on.
Well-acted, well-directed, well-written, highly recommended.