Casino

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2005)

I remember seeing about half of the film, but I never finished it, and then I saw it listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die which annoyed me, so I had to watch it all the way through, from Golden Globe nominated director Martin Scorcese. Basically the film gives us an insight into the dark world behind the glitz and glimmer of Las Vegas, the gambling capital of America, maybe even the world. Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (Robert De Niro) runs one of the biggest and most successful casinos in Vegas, the Tangiers, with Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) helping him out, they are the mobsters that know everything there is to know about the running of a casino. They know how that the customer are never the winners, the money goes through a system of checks, they can spot the cheaters, and they know how the staff should be doing their jobs in the way they want. For about an hour and a quarter the film consists of the two friends, since childhood, narrating their knowledge of the gambling business, and then Ace meets Ginger McKenna (Golden Globe winning, and Oscar nominated Sharon Stone), a sure fire charmer to lure rich gamblers into the joint. Ace is the smooth operator, while the often troubling Nicky is the violent one who will beat someone if they cross the casino. As I mentioned, there is a dark side to the world of Las Vegas, and that is seen by Ace and Nicky, as Ace is lured into loving a hustler who he wrongly trusts with his most treasured assets, and Nicky gets involved with too much violence, drugs and alcohol. In the end, the whole casino and all of its building blocks come tumbling down, all the key staff members and mob heads are killed, including Nicky who is beaten heavily and buried alive, Ginger gets shot, and Ace only just survives his car blowing up. Also starring James Woods as Lester Diamond, Toy Story's Don Rickles as Billy Sherbert, Rush Hour 2's Alan King as Andy Stone, Kevin Pollak as Phillip Green, L.Q. Jones as Pat Webb, Dick Smothers as Senator and Frank Vincent as Frank Marino. DeNiro and Pesci both create vibrant gangster like characters, and Stone certainly deserved her Academy Award nomination for being a real hard-edge vamp, filled with the same sort of stuff GoodFellas gave us, the lust for power, the domination of money, some sleaze and some really graphic scenes, it is certainly a must see crime drama. Very good!