Shiny, but not without a few nicks

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2009)

In 1990, Martin Scorsese unleashed Nicholas Pileggi's hard boiled docu book to the cinema. After viewing it for the first time, I knew than and I am still confident today in 2009, Goodfellas is one of the finest motion pictures that will ever be made, let alone the best gangster movie of them all.
Having read the Pileggi book prior to seeing the film, I was surprised how well the writer and director translated the source material. Casino is probably the best Vegas movie you'll see. I'd call Fear and Loathing a close second. Leaving Las Vegas, to me, was well acted, but boring and overly "arty."
So yeah Casino is a slick piece of craft. Slick cinematography, slick design, slick acting. But the heart and soul we'd find in Goodfellas is clearly missing from this take. The mechanisms of greed, the procedures of skimming are fascinatingly and warmly documented here, but the people are just not very interesting. There is a good 45 minutes of human drama about humans we don't give a shi*t about.
But the good in Casino is so good, we forget about the thin characterizations. We forget its too long, we forget, at least a little, Sharon Stone is the only miscast part. Sure its got a few spots, but this one is still pretty bright to watch, even nearly 15 years on.
You have to hand it to Scorsese. Even his crappy movies are damned good.