Two Words: Staggeringly Overrated.

Rating: 4/10 (3 November 2010)

It should be clear to anyone who has followed Scorsese's career that he continues to fall back on several crutches in the construction of this film: casting his cute lil' mama, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and a boat load of the other goombas who ended up on "The Sopranos"; the utilization of character voiceovers (a totally lazy device employed by otherwise ineffective storytellers) and yet another boring and way-too-loud classic rock soundtrack handpicked by a guy still living in the 60's. We get it, Marty: you REALLY like The Stones.
Take your pick, and I will show you several films for which Scorsese received well more credit than he deserves: the muddy, ponderous "Mean Streets," the mediocre "Taxi Driver," the execrable "New York, New York" and "The Color of Money," and the predictable duo of "Cape Fear" and "The Departed," the latter of which was utterly ruined by Mark Wahlberg's shrill, one-note performance. Additionally, Scorsese's overblown video to Michael Jackson's "Bad" was complete jive and gave the regrettable Wesley Snipes a stairway to stardom.
Ultimately, "Casino" is poor relation to the superior "Goodfellas," which, along with "The King of Comedy," is Scorsese's only film worthy of the heaps of praise showered upon his overall body of work. I should also mention that Sharon Stone's performance in "Casino" is just plain embarrassing. Don't get me wrong, friends. I think Martin Scorsese is a decent filmmaker, but he sure ain't Cinema Jesus.