Casino (1995) directed by Martin Scorsese • Reviews, film + cast
There’s a fantastic symphony of looks in the film, with everyone watching everyone, and you push it and push it until we reach—
—the all-seeing eye. That’s when he sees her for the first time. Before they had the video eye-in-the-sky, they had men with binoculars who had been cheaters up on the catwalks, trying to find other cheaters. I just thought it was really wonderful, with nobody trusting anybody.
Casino focuses on Sam Rothstein (De Niro), a Jewish American gambling expert handicapper tasked by the Chicago Outfit to oversee casino and hotel operations at the Tangiers Casino in Las Vegas. It also marked Scorsese’s third collaboration with Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro, Sam’s right hand man. The real highlight of the film however wasn’t its two leading men but Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna earning rave reviews and an Academy Award nomination – indeed the film’s sole Oscar nomination.
With so many creatives involved in both Goodfellas and Casino, there are naturally comparisons between the two but the focus on gambling does mean these are often unwarranted and De Niro is more front and centre here with him more a supporting figure to Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill in Goodfellas. Stylistically there are of course some similarities, the use of voiceover and some of the terminology but for the most part they are different beasts. As with Goodfellas there are bouts of explosive violence.
Casino movie review & film summary (1995)
De Niro and Pesci are as one might expect on top form with Sam looking to be in control and Pesci a fine foil. Stone deservedly earned plaudits, lighting up the screen whenever she appears. De Niro is on screen for the vast majority of the film’s three hour runtime and so there is much relying on his performance and he exudes star power showing how in sync he is with Scorsese in one of this finest performances of the 1990s, remarkably coming alongside another the same year in Michael Mann’s Heat.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro’s collaborations need no introduction with the pair teaming on nine films and soon to work together on Killers of the Flower Moon. The pair’s eighth collaboration, 1995’s Casino, now comes to digital for the first time and remains an underrated film from a director on one of his hottest streaks, fresh off the huge acclaim of Goodfellas and his take on The Age of Innocence with Daniel Day Lewis.
Casino is a film showing a director at the top of his game in the middle of an especially hot streak. If not Scorsese’s strongest effort it is certainly worthy of appreciation. De Niro and Pesci excel as ever while Sharon Stone almost steals the film from under them, and if there is an element of formula on display it is simply because Scorsese is one of the best at the crime epic, beautifully capturing 70s Vegas and sandwiched between The Age of Innocence and Kundun showing his range, something he often doesn’t get enough credit for.
There are plenty of flaws here, and I'm going to spend some time pointing them out, particularly since the film receives so many 10's.
Casino is based on the story of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and the Stardust casino in Las Vegas.
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Sharon Stone gives a very committed performance which shows she’s got a range which hasn’t always been called upon.
I agree. De Niro really helped her through those scenes. He’s very generous with her and you can see how he’s always helping. It’s a scary role, a tough one—like when she takes cocaine in front of the child: that was her choice.
It gives the film some of its best lines
There isn't a bad performance, really, but she does dominate everybody else in "Casino." So it's not her acting that wears out the movie for me; it's the pretentious and uninteresting melodrama that follows in her tracks.
The pseudo-romantic dynamic between De Niro and Stone is, at heart, just an old-fashioned gangster-and-his-moll story, with the feisty woman first being pushed around, then pushing back, standing up to the boyfriend with the gun.
Casino | Reelviews Movie Reviews
With brilliant use of voice-overs by the characters to give the feel of a documentary, Scorsese shows us the inner workings of the Mob. De Niro is a cool, calculating numbers man in flashy but perfectly tailored silk suits; Joe Pesci, a volatile Italian thug who elaborately mutilates those who betray him. At the center of this insular society, Scorsese places a beautiful, Pucci clad showgirl (Sharon Stone) who strides into the bustling casinos and counting rooms piled high with cash and brings down the whole house of cards.
· In Vegas, everybodys gotta watch everybody else
Robert De Niro plays Rothstein, Joe Pesci is his enforcer, and Sharon Stone plays his wife in a Golden Globe-winning performance.Rothstein is called on by the Mob to run the Tangiers casino in Vegas.
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There's some promising sequences with him forcing De Niro to come down in the middle of the night to get him fifty million-dollar chips for a gambling rage, but, once again, once the story leaves the casino and starts getting involved with all the other stuff, it goes downhill.
But to the filmmakers' credit, having Pesci narrate part of the story does make his denouement all the more surprising.