Director Martin Scorsese reunites with members of his GoodFellas gang (writer Nicholas Pileggi; actors Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent) for a three-hour epic about the rise and fall of mobster Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro), a character based on real-life gangster Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. (It's modelled on Wiseguy and GoodFellas and Pileggi's true crime book Casino: Love and Honour in Las Vegas.) Through Rothstein, the picture tells the story of how the Mafia seized, and finally lost control of, Las Vegas gambling. The first hour plays like a fascinating... documentary, intricately detailing the inner workings of Vegas casinos. Sharon Stone is the stand out among the actors; she nabbed an Oscar nomination for her role as the voracious Ginger, the glitzy call girl who becomes Rothstein's wife. The film is not as fast-paced or gripping as Scorsese's earlier gangster pictures (Mean Streets and Good Fellas) but it's still absorbing. And, hey--it's Scorsese! --Jim Emerson, Amazon.com [show more]
Martin Scorsese's epic ode to the gangsters who once controlled Las Vegas is a powerful, operatic examination of greed, the lust for power, and the dehumanization of commercialism. Scorsese populates his Vegas with an all-star cast of Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone, all of whom provide stellar performances as their morals and humanity degenerate amidst the glitz and false glamour of the Vegas neon. Every surface in the film seems to gleam and shine, and Stone's marriage to DeNiro is predicated on gold and financial security rather than love. It's a world where the maniacal violence perpetrated by Pesci is only part of the inhuman mechanisms necessary to keep this mecca of greed in business. And the ending, which details the replacement of mobster rule with big business and increasingly sophisticated commercialism, drives home the point that the violence wasn't even necessary to the con. This film is often grouped incorrectly with Scorsese's other "gangster" flicks, but its true focus is actually commercialism and the glamorous facades of manipulative capitalism. The characters in "Casino" are barely even human; they live for money and the accumulation of power, and put everything else second. It's a stunning film, where every gleaming inch of film is in the service of this message, and even the occasional bursts of humor and glimpses into a less artificial past point up the essential hollowness of these characters' present. Any Scorsese fan needs to see this, the pinnacle of his 90s films.
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Director Martin Scorsese casts Robert De Niro as Sam 'Ace' Rothstein, the mob's frontman for a billion dollar Las Vegas casino. The story begins in 1973; Ace falls for hooker Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), while boyhood companion Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) is appointed as his muscle at the club. Over the years various jealousies surface and erupt in a series of violent betrayals and, ultimately, the destruction of Rothstein's empire.
The story of a Jewish front man for the Las Vegas Mob and his wife who jinxes the operation Based on the real-life story of Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal and Tony 'The Ant' Spilotro
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