Review: Casino

In my opinion, Casino is one of Scorsese’s best films, undeservedly caught in the shadow of Goodfellas, directed five years earlier. The director’s work is excellent. A three-hour film in which there are no intense chases, furious shootings, searches for mysterious killers, full of dialogues and off-screen monologues, looks surprisingly easy. You just don’t notice how the time passes. This is really a story. Moreover, the story is interesting, conveying the splendour and spirit of Las Vegas of the seventies, and at the same time the feeling of a locomotive that has gone out of control and rushing at full speed to the inevitable collapse.

The film is built around the fate of the three main characters: “Ace” Rothstein, Nicky Santoro and Ginger Mckenna. Playing them, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone showed a real acting class. This is probably not the best film by De Niro. Still, his confident and competent Ace, not afraid of any problems, and on the other hand completely unable to understand his wife and talking to her as an accountant, comparing income with expenses, is simply incomparable.

Nicky Santoro can lay down and cripple a healthy bull without any gun, but just using a fountain pen. Joe Pesci is gorgeous. His small and tidy Nicky, a psychopath and a ruthless killer, a man without any brakes, wound up from a half-turn, looks really dangerous, like a bulldog who is ready to cling to the throat of a bull 100 times larger without any hesitation. And then he manages to be a caring father of a little boy and an attentive and sensitive interlocutor of an upset Ginger. In my opinion, this is the best role for Pesci, even better than in Goodfellas. I guess that he was not nominated and did not receive any awards for Casino just because he had already won an Oscar in 1991 for his role as Tommy DeVito.

We all know that in real-life casinos always try to improve their marketing with the help of movies. Yes, Casino is not a typical gambling movie, other aspects are worthy of attention, but actually many casinos in the world flourished due to this film. Moreover, the movie greatly influenced the people who had no gambling experience, and Australian citizens were so impressed with the movie that they started Aussie pokies online real money. It was very strange, the film had such a powerful impact because practically there are no scenes showing people playing slots, as I remember, but it turned out to be a powerful driving factor for Australian people.

In the movie, Ginger realizes that she can’t stop anything and can’t resist anything. Before, I didn’t consider Sharon Stone to be any serious actress. But after the Casino, I must admit -I was wrong. Here she really played and impressed the audience. And she played very coolly. She succeeded Ginger, gradually turning from a self-confident half-lioness into a troubled, unhappy woman.

Her best scenes in the film are an explanation with Sam, when she begins to realize that she will not be able to stop, a quarrel with Sam refusing to let her into the house, dialogues with Nicky Santoro. As a former top model, who had been noted before by her excellent figure in Total Recall and the lack of underwear in Basic Instinct, she was able to play like that. Both the Oscar nomination and the Golden Globe for this role were received by her deservedly.

The soundtrack of the film deserves a special kind word. Scorsese delighted the audience with an excellent selection of vivid and memorable compositions. Moreover, perfectly combined with what is happening on the screen action. Here you can hear Bach’s St. Matthew Passion House of the Rising Sun from the Animals, the songs of the Rolling Stones and the touching Camille by Georges Delerue. In general, this is one of the best examples I know of combining musical compositions with cinematic action. This is especially well heard on the original soundtrack. Music sounds unusually convex and expressive, and yet it does not interfere with the perception of the speech and actions of the characters.

A general impression of the film

An excellent film made with great skill, in which a talented director, a compelling script and gifted actors come together. If you are a fan of gangster sagas – this film should be in your collection. But viewers who are little interested in criminal showdowns on the movie screen should also watch it. Because a real master made this film.