The reward for those who overrated *GoodFellas*.

Rating: 1/10 (21 November 2003)

This might not be Scorsese's worst movie (that would be *Kundun*), but it may be his most negligible movie, given that it's very much a remake of the director's own *GoodFellas*, which was a pretty empty affair to begin with. That makes *Casino* extremely empty -- call it a black hole.
Once again, we get the nonstop soundtrack comprised of Bobby Vinton-esque oldies and 70's album rock. Oh, there's snatches of grand opera, too, especially when little Joe Pesci is killing someone. The point of all this music, presumably, is to punctuate with either emphasis or irony what we're seeing on the screen . . . an easy indicator that the director doesn't have much to show us. And in case that wasn't enough, Scorsese tries to fill the gaps with nonstop -- and I mean, NONSTOP -- voice-over narration. This may be one of the few movies a blind person could watch without missing anything. As cinema is a visual medium, I'm obviously not being complimentary to Mr. Scorsese, here.
Scorsese keeps trying to outdo his earlier film with MORE narration, more walk-on characters, more gruesome violence (one guy gets his head squeezed in a vice), more domestic squabbling, more more more. But it's all meaningless, quite apart from being as boring as hell. What we have here is the story of small player from the Kansas City mob (Robert DeNiro) who wants to be a big player. His bosses send him to Vegas, where he feels he has a real opportunity to not only be a player, but to be "legit" in the bargain by becoming a real casino boss.
In the meantime, he's got to deal with an old associate, the violent Joe Pesci, and a whory wife (Sharon Stone) who's addicted to drugs and, most laughably, a mullet-haired James Woods. I can buy the whole wife thing, maybe . . . men WILL do stupid things when it comes to blondes. But I absolutely cannot take Joe Pesci seriously as a fearsome, bloodthirsty mobster who blows into Vegas looking for his own action. De Niro and Pesci should've portrayed each other's roles. But what do I know.