Casino (1995) directed by Martin Scorsese • Reviews, film + cast
The film is loosely based on the story of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who unofficially ran four casinos for the Chicago Outfit and who served as the inspiration for the Rothstein character, as well as Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, a Chicago Outfit enforcer who had ambitions of becoming boss of his own crime family and was the inspiration for Santoro's character. Although the film isn't an exact account of what happened (a lot of that is ), .
Hi Ken, I check your site weekly, and it’s always a thrill to see a new essay posted. (Despite the hunky guy at the top of your Back To The Beach post, I was getting a little tired of checking in and finding him still there…)
I skipped Casino when it came out, because I wrongly assumed it would be a retread of Goodfellas. (And I often have a low tolerance for Pesci, particularly if he’s the main character and playing for laughs — I’ve never made it all the way through My Cousin Vinny.)
But I think tonight, while the rest of the world watches that sportsball thingy (apparently all about Taylor Swift and Usher?), I’m gonna settle in for those 3 hours with Casino. And like you, I’m sometimes (albeit infrequently) underwhelmed by Scorsese, but I’m never bored — there are always rewards.
And I’m in your camp as to western, war, and sports films, though I’m not sure it’s so much about the mythology of the hero as it is about my being gay and completely uninterested in such subjects — though, to be fair, I watched 10 minutes of Drag Race, and I was completely uninterested in that as well, while ALL of my friends won’t miss it (and then talk about it endlessly)!
Gotta go, almost time for kickoff— whatever that is…
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Casino movie review & film summary (1995)
Casino in some respects is director Martin Scorsese dialing up to 11. Oh, you want the mob life? Well here it is in Chairman of the board brashness and lurid VEGAS BABY! sindulgence, where gambling king and long-term gaming licensee in waiting Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) funnels money out the back door of the fictional Tangiers hotel he all but runs for the mob elders back East. To him, it’s a “morality carwash.” There’s almost too much story to cram into Casino, with multiple back-and-forth narration dumps from Ace and best friend from “back home” Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), and virtually wall to music and songs, exhaustively sourced by Scorsese himself with musician Robbie Robertson. Perhaps that’s the point—Vegas, whether wilder and Mob run, or a homogenized “Disneyland” as Ace disparages when big business and their own greed and carelessness finally squeezed the bosses out, has always been about sensory overload. Critic David Thomson perhaps has the right idea, revisiting the film often, but in chunks—“half an hour here or there, passages, riffs, routines, ‘numbers’ if you like—and I think that references to music are vital,” he says. It’s the sensation, the feeling you get from listening to a piece of music over and over again. From the damning final chorus of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in the opening scene, where Ace gets blown up in his car and goes hurtling through a Saul and Elaine Bass designed inferno of flames and Vegas strip—Bad Men before Mad Men; to the tapestry of hooks and grooves that fit the mood and glide of a dream town ripe for the picking. “I was very lucky to be able to choose from over forty years of music and in most cases to be able to get it into the film,” the director recounts in . “Certain songs and pieces of music, when you play them against the picture, change everything. So it’s very, very delicate. In Goodfellas the sound is more Phil Spector, while in this picture it’s more the Stones, especially “Can’t you hear me knocking?” which is a key song in the film.” Make hay while the desert sun shines, baby.
Until the early 1980s, had a huge stake in . But while they ran the casinos, they didn't run the town. They had to use fronts to get their men in to run everything. One of these fronts is Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro), a Jewish gambling prodigy who, having made big money for his Mafia associates in the past, is sent to Vegas to run the Tangiers casino-hotel for the Chicago Outfit. Rothstein, a ruthlessly logical and efficient character, soon turns the Tangiers into a successful and profitable organisation for the Mob bosses, but things start to go shaky when Rothstein falls head-over-heels in love with Ginger (Stone), a beautifully seductive but manipulative and troubled casino hustler. Things get even more complicated by the arrival of Rothstein's old friend Nicky Santoro (Pesci), a psychotically hot-headed mobster sent by the bosses to watch over Rothstein's operation; he soon decides to make Las Vegas his personal kingdom, bringing much undesired attention on both himself and Rothstein. Tensions steadily escalate between the three that will end up .
The film is based on the true story of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who the mob employed to take control from the Teamsters in Las Vegas in 1971, running a number of casinos beginning with the Stardust. His muscle (who himself muscled in, unofficially) was his childhood friend from Chicago, Tony Spilotro—our “heroes” are based on these guys. Let’s say a number of things went wrong with the dream ticket—a disgruntled hood who travels between Kansas and Vegas foolishly keeps a record of expenses owed; the greedy mob bump off Kevin Pollak’s straight hotel frontman Phillip Green’s previously unknown former business partner Anna Scott when she wins a legal case against him for her share; a wiretap on an unrelated murder picks up the aforementioned hood grumbling about being stiffed for money; and so on. For Spilotro, his main weakness was falling for Geri McGee, a “chip hustler,” hooker and topless dancer (portrayed as Ginger, by a terrific Sharon Stone). He married her, setting aside money and jewelry in her name, but actually his safety net, but their marriage collapsed into a Taylor and Burton-esque spiral of recriminations, alcoholism, control freakery and distrust, Geri turning for solace to Tony (as happens in the film).
Upon its release, Casino was met with critical acclaim and became a favorite among fans of the gangster genre. The film holds a strong rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a score reflecting critical and audience appreciation. Critics praised Scorsese’s direction, the compelling performances by , Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone, and the film’s detailed portrayal of the era. Stone’s performance, particularly, earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.
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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.
It gives the film some of its best lines
You might have heard of the movie Casino, which came out in 1995. It might be a little old, but it is still a crime-thriller worth watching for any fans of casinos and gambling. Directed by the famous and starring the likes of Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci, it remains one of the most celebrated casino-related movies today.
Casino | Reelviews Movie Reviews
For all this, Casino is a film about marriage—bad marriage on a Shakespearean scale undone by what kills most marriages: money, distrust, and infidelity. Casino is another logical step up from the street-level quasi-hoods of . It pointedly lacks the comforting blue-collar attitude of the Goodfellas crew; Jimmy the Gent, Tommy, and Paulie are lovable when contrasted with the at-all-costs obscenity of Las Vegas and its resident hoods. In its cut-up aesthetics and spurning of the subtle, Casino was Scorsese’s angriest, most punkish film since and joined two other exciting films from the mid 90s—Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls —in offering a purposefully excessive take on the city of excess; like those films, though not as severely, Casino was greeted without adulation.
· In Vegas, everybodys gotta watch everybody else
Five years after Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese returned to the subject of organised crime with this virtuosic chronicle of Las Vegas’s formative years. Starring Robert De Niro and an Oscar®-nominated Sharon Stone, Casino is a technically-dazzling epic from one of America’s greatest living filmmakers.
Cinemark Century South Point 16 Movie Theater in Las Vegas
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.
Casino streaming: where to watch movie online
What’s even interesting, the film is based on the true story of Frank Lefty Rosenthal (acted by Robert De Niro) and his mobster best friend Tony Spilotro (acted by Joe Pesci).
Casino Summary, Trailer, Cast, and More
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.