Criminally Under-acknowledged! Definitely one of Scorsese's best.

Rating: 10/10 (16 June 2006)

"Casino" is not even on the top 250. It's a pity, what with so many lame movies getting much higher ratings.
Wonderfully directed by Martin Scorsese, this epic tale (based on real life incidents) unfolds with the story of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (Robert De Niro) a mob-backed guy who is brought in to Las Vegas to operate the Tangiers Casino, owing to his expertise in the same. His boyhood pal, Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) also moves to Vegas with criminal plans of his own. Sam does his job really well, exposing cheats, disposing of the weaker employees, making sure he isn't robbed of money, and ends up making big bucks for his mob bosses "back home". However, things change when Sam falls for Ginger (Sharon Stone), a hustler. She already has a no-good boyfriend Lester (James Woods, in a small albeit important role). Inspite of his knowledge about her manipulative nature, he marries her. She is an alcoholic, and all she ever wants is money and security. Meanwhile, Nicky continues his criminal activities.
"Casino" is, without doubt one of the best films by Scorsese. The film runs for almost three hours and events take their time to unravel, and rightly so.
The performances: Robert De Niro is one of the finest actors to come out of Hollywood and that's a universal fact! In this movie, he delivers a performance that qualifies as one his best after 'Raging Bull'. He appears super-cool as the Casino operator and you cannot help but sympathize with him in some later parts of the movie when he is having a bad time because of various reasons. Trust him to play an all-in-one character: a mob-connected Casino guy, a friend and a loving father all at the same time! His powerful performance in this movie has to be seen to be believed. It is nothing short of mind-blowing!
Joe Pesci..what can one say about this guy! Delivering sharp dialogs and firing those F-words with a one-of-a-kind punch is something only he can do! He plays a wicked, wicked character who also cares for his boy-hood friend, Sam. Another brilliant performance after GoodFellas, he is the finest choice for his role.
Sharon Stone: Superb!! I never thought I would feel that about her performance, but indeed, she gets a hell of a chance to act here..and she does it exceedingly well! The drunk hustler who cannot find happiness is played to perfection by Sharon...I guess it is also kudos to the director for bringing out the actor in her.
Then there are some wonderful, but small supporting performances by James Woods as Lester Diamond, Frank Vincent as Frank Marino, Alan King as Andy Stone and Kevin Pollak (The Usual Suspects) as Phillip Green. Special mention here, of Pasquale Cajano, who is superb as the mob boss, Remo Gaggi.
The soundtrack is very much like that in GoodFellas. And much in the same manner, there is some playful rock'n'roll music playing in the background during any violent scene of crime!
The dialog is brilliant. Robert Richardson's cinematography is amazing. The wonderful screenplay for the film is co-written by Nicolas Pileggi who is also the author of the book.
As mentioned before, the film runs for about 3 hours but there is not a single moment when you'd want to take your eyes off the screen.
An under-rated classic, this one deserves a rightful place up there along with Scorsese's other acclaimed classics.