Clichéd, contrived, implausible, tired

Rating: 1/10 (27 January 2015)

Right from the opening sequence, with De Niro dressed in a cerise jacket and shirt, getting into car that blows up, and then circling across the title credits, it was clear this movie was going to be a stinker. I don't care if Martin Scorsese directed it. Even monkeys fall out of trees. Why would a cartel of rich men hand over control of a casino to a handicapper, i.e. someone who is good at betting. You need someone who is good at organisation and leadership, a CEO. Any rich man would know that. If he didn't know that, he wouldn't be rich. So the premise, introduced in the first minute, makes no sense. Joe Pesci's yapping voice - as a narrator?! Some silly staged stabbing in a bar over a pen. The other man's hostility didn't even make sense. Just a lazy set up to show how vicious the Joe Pesci character was. And Robert De Niro falls for the annoying girl that's stealing chips from men and throwing everyone's chips around, when with the status of a casino boss, he could choose any of 1000 non-annoying, non-criminal women? Time to stop watching.