CASINO (1995) - Movie Review

Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, James Woods, Don Rickles, Kevin Pollack
Genre: Crime, Drama
Writer: Martin Scorsese, Nicholas Pileggi
Runtime: 188 min
Rated: Rated R for strong brutal violence, pervasive strong language, drug use and some sexuality
Buy This Movie: Blu-ray (Amazon), DVD (Amazon), 4K Ultra HD, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV

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Synopsis:

Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci star in director Martin Scorsese's riveting look at how blind ambition, white-hot passion and 24-karat greed toppled an empire. Las Vegas 1973 is the setting for this fact-based story about the Mob's multi-million dollar casino operation - where fortunes and lives were made and lost with a roll of the dice.

Review:

Martin Scorsese reteamed with author and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi ("Goodfellas") for the 3-hour crime drama "Casino", based on Pileggi's non-fiction book "Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas". The film is a sprawling saga that finds Scorsese reusing (and abusing) his favorite visual, musical and narrative tropes to great success, crafting what is perhaps one of his best known and appreciated gangster dramas alongside the seminal "Goodfellas".

The movie marked the filmmaker's eight collaboration with Robert De Niro, who delivers an understated and nuanced performance as Sam "Ace" Rothstein, a professional handicapper based on Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who between 1968 and 1981 ran the Stardust, Fremont, Marina, and Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the mob. In the movie Rothstein is given the reigns of the fictional Tangiers Casino, which is based on the real-life Stardust, but the small casino-sized empire he helped build is threatened by his volatile friend, "made man" Nicky Santoro, played with fiery gusto by Joe Pesci, and his streetwise hustler wife Ginger McKenna, embodied by Sharon Stone in an Oscar-nominated performance.

The story is epic in scope, but the narrative never loses sight of its characters. Every interaction between Sam, Nicky and Ginger offers a thrilling display of magnetic acting skill, making each scene memorable. Most of the dialogue between De Niro and Pesci was improvised, with the director only giving them a beginning and an end for each scene and leaving the rest up to them. Imagine the level of skill and dedication required. Stone is also fantastic, showing a great deal of versatility in a challenging role, and it's probably the best performance of her entire career.

From a technical standpoint, the film is a tour de force. Every department, from cinematography and editing, to art direction and costumes fires on all cylinders to recreate the loud and flashy world of Las Vegas and its sinful allure. This rise and fall story gets an operatic treatment, and it looks and sounds amazing. The downside is that while Scorsese's tehnique of juxtaposing narration atop a visual mosaic and a broad musical selection is mostly effective and entertaining, it's used so often that it can become repetitive. The running time is also a bit excessive, probably because the book was chock-full of delicious tidbits that Scorsese and Pileggi had a hard time culling, which is why we ended up with so much voice-over narration. Regardless, Pesci's delightfully profane voiceovers alone are worth sitting through endless waves of exposition.

While it undeniably has some flaws, "Casino" is still one of Scorsese's best films and it's easy to forgive a master director for overindulging in his craft when the result is so good. It's a must-see, not just for the filmmaker's fans, but for anyone who enjoys a complex, well-crafted and incredibly acted epic crime drama.

SCORE: 9/10