Rolling the dice

Right this is another post that I've salvaged from my tennis crammed blog, back when I blended all sorts of posts together, so here it is, its a review on Martin Scorsese's crime drama, Casino.  So the usual ahead, plot spoilers, ridiculously overlong plot summaries, and the usual sum up of my thoughts on how good a movie it all is.  Enjoy!  

Casino is based on true life events and starts back in the 1970s where Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is a sports handicapper who is associated with the mob, is sent to Las Vegas and asked to run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by the Teamsters (the American labour union).  At first Sam refuses but is soon persuaded into doing it by one of the mob's associates Andy Stone (Alan King).  Once Sam takes over the casino he uses his expert innovations and experience in book making and gambling to double the casino's profits.  The mob who are running the casino in the background, at the same time are doing a skim on the casino's profits, and the bosses send out Sam's friend and Caporegime Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) and his crew to Las Vegas, in order to protect the mob's interests in the casino.  However as things progress Nicky lets himself known in town and around the casinos, and before he knows it, he is banned from the casino or any casino in Las Vegas.  Meanwhile this happens Sam starts seeing a female hustler, Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone) whom he falls in love with, however Ginger doesn't feel that way about Sam.  Regardless of that, Sam persuades Ginger into marrying him and promises to set her up for live by giving her a joint account where she will have over 2 million dollars to her name.  After they marry however things start to crumble as Ginger still hangs around with her ex-boyfriend and pimp Lester Diamond (James Woods).  On finding this out Sam sends Nicky's men to beat up Lester, which horrifies Ginger who then resents Sam for his actions, and she starts to confide in Nicky, although she isn't aware of his involvement in the incident.

While this is all going on, Sam although he is running the casino he hasn't officially filed for a licence, and he has been re-naming his job title in order to avoid attracting attention toward this.  But soon after Sam fires one of his employees Don Ward for incompetence, Don's brother Patt Webb (L.Q. Jones) comes to see Sam about it and asks that he hire Don back, but Sam refuses.  Webb though however is a county commissioner and he soon finds out through the newspapers that Sam has stated he is the boss of the Tangiers in Las Vegas, he then asks that an investigation take place to see if Sam has filed for a licence or not.  This leads to further complications as on the day of Sam's trial hearing for presenting his case to petition for a licence, he is denied in the hearing, which leaves Sam outraged.  Sam also soon after deliberately raises as much media attention about his case as possible by going on TV, with a live show from the Tangiers, which has guest stars etc.  The mob realise that this is pissing off friends of theirs in business, send Andy Stone to talk to Sam, who tells him he should quit the job, but Sam insists he can't, but rather he wishes that Nicky would take a break and leave for a while.  On hearing this, Nicky is furious and sets up a meeting out in the desert with Sam, where he confronts him and tells him "You're warned, don't you ever go over my fucking head again, you motherfucker you!!".

By this time, Nicky has brought alot of heat on himself with the Las Vegas police force who were once co-operative with the casino officials and mob associates, are now so pissed off they want to nail him for anything they can.  Nicky is also determined to plant his own flag out in Vegas and to go after everything, the skim, the casino, his old bosses back home including Remo Gaggi (Pasquale Cajano) who is the most powerful boss in the crime family.  But Nicky in bringing heat on himself, he allows himself to become sloppy and disorganised, as he and his crew get all hopped up on drink and cocaine.  Sam's relationship with Ginger has also deteriorated really badly as well by then, as by this time she has become an alcoholic.  Ginger also goes to Nicky for help in order to try and get her money that she and Sam placed in the bank, and at this time they begin having an affair behind Sam's back.  Sam however soon finds out, and is horrified as he knows if word of the affair gets back to the mob bosses, they will be all killed, as its bad for business.

As the film nears the end, events spiral even further out of control, as Ginger has a wild row with Sam at a restaurant after she has tied up their daughter at home.  When they go home Ginger storms out on Sam, and comes back in the morning, ramming her car up the drive and screaming hysterically at Sam to come out the house to confront her.  By then the police arrive and calm down Ginger, who asks to go in and get some of her stuff, but she actually goes in to get the key for safe deposit box at the bank, containing her and Sam's money.  Ginger manages to get to the bank and takes some of the money from deposit box, but soon after leaving she is arrested by the FBI.  And the film culminates with the FBI coming down on the mob associates, having gathered evidence through wire taps, making arrests on many of the crime associates and other people involved in the skim.  The mob also make their own moves on "silencing" any one who has been arrested or may have skipped before being caught, which leads to the downfall of the mob's involvement with the casinos.

Casino is an even more ambitious film than Goodfellas is, however in terms of critical acclaim, Goodfellas has always remained the more lauded of the two, and it appears that Casino will always play second fiddle to Scorsese's first crime drama.  But for me I really don't see it that way, and if anything is possibly even a better film, as it covers so much more ground and scope than Goodfellas did.  It was always pretty much a well known fact that the mob had ties with the casinos back in those days, but despite being the obvious, as usual Scorsese takes this subject matter and turns it into a gripping and highly entertaining film.  Like he did in Goodfellas, Scorsese heavily uses the narrative in the film here, and he constantly has Sam and Nicky narrate the film, and there is even a short passage with Frank Vincent narrating too (who plays one of Nicky's crime associates, Frank Marino).  And it never hinders the film, in fact it really plays a crucial part in the film and keeps the story flowing nicely.  And one of the neatest touches in the narrative is the scene where Nicky finally meets his demise in the cornfields at the end and as his crew mate Frank Marino hits him with a baseball bat, Nicky's narration cuts off with an "aghhh!".  It also helps to have Pesci in the film right up until the end as he carries a fair amount of the film's energy, like he did in Goodfellas, so it was great that he is in it throughout.  

Character wise, Casino rarely has any sympathetic characters in it at all, in fact they are all mostly fairly despicable, and Sam himself is such an arrogant obssessive control freak, that its hard to like him.  However Sam is not without his redeeming qualities, as he clearly loved Ginger, and he wanted his marriage to work, and you do feel a bit of sympathy for him when he realises how he could never reach her, and how the weight of managing the casino takes it toll on him.  Sam also comes across as a good father to his daughter, Sammie, and this is clearly shown in a couple of scenes.  Ginger is even less likeable, as she too is massively self-absorbed in her own greed and marries Sam merely as a forced convenience so she can eventually get her hands on his money.  And in a way that's probably one of the film's lesser aspects is that Sam and Ginger's relationship is a forced one, and Sam's love is very much unrequieted, unlike in Goodfellas where Henry and Karen Hill both loved each other as a couple, despite their differences.  The character that is actually easier to empathise with is the one character you probably shouldn't and this is Nicky, and its probably morely because he is a married man with a family, and he has a son, little Nicky, and we see Nicky's humanity come out in certain scenes in the film, particularly where he makes breakfast for his son every morning, no matter what he was up to.  As a bad guy, while he is pretty vicious, and he has his fair share of vicious scenes in Casino, Nicky also displays some shreds of decency, one being where he has one of the rival mob guy's beaten to a pulp, as the guy refuses to talk, Nicky has the man's head stuck in a vise, where he pleads with the man and says "don't make me do this, come on, don't make me be a bad guy".  And that's difference between Tommy in Goodfellas and Nicky in Casino, you really don't give a shit about Tommy, as he is a bad seed, with no family, and he cares about no one or nothing.

Performance wise, Casino is pretty much top drawer, with Robert De Niro giving an excellent performance as Sam Rothstein, who was in reality based on Franky "Lefty" Rosenthal, who was a sports better for the mob.  De Niro's take on Sam is that he is an arrogant twat, who bosses around everyone in the film, hires and fires staff at the drop of a hat, and while he is quite controlling of Ginger at times, you do realise he does lover her, and that he is driven crazy her.  Sharon Stone also gives a really good performance as Ginger, and while she rarely suceeds in portraying Ginger with any sense of empathy or much in the way of likeability, (well you can't really), she does a great job in showing what a car wreck of a person Ginger is.  In fact Sharon's best scenes in the film come when she shows Ginger's vulnerability, when confiding to Nicky (whereafter she blows him! ;-), and also her blind rage when confronting Sam near the end of the film, crashing her car out in their drive, she berates him and throws leaves and grass at him, which is great.  I also particularly liked that scene because Sharon when she gets out the car, she slams the door and falls on the ground, but I'm not so sure if that was a mistake or not, but either way it works. 

But the film's best performance once again is from Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro (based on real life capo Tony "The Ant" Spilotro), and Pesci does a superb job, playing yet another gangster, but with a different slant as I already said above, he isn't just a wild loose canon (well he is) but he also is a family man as well, which helps bring out some shades of humanity in his character.  Pesci also has some great dialogue in the film, and he of course delivers some of the best lines, one of my favourites is when he speaks to a gambling loser at a bar who owes him money, and he says to him "You call yourself a man???? Do you know that you are a lying low-life motherfuckin gambling degenerate prick???!".  He also bluntly and rather unflatteringly refers to Sam as the "golden jew" which in itself a real insult but he delivers the dialogue so well you just have to love it, as well as calling Arabs "sand niggers".  And one of Pesci's best moments is at near the very end (PLOIT SPOILER AGAIN!!!) where he meets his fate and is brutally beaten near to death with baseballs bats and buried alive in a corn field, as he watches his brother being beaten to a pulp he breaks down and sobs, and its almost like he there and then wants to receive forgiveness for his sins.  Its also the film's most uncomfortable and unpleasant scene to watch, and while it isn't quite apparently what happened in real life, as in real life, it was said that Tony Spilotro and his brother were in fact executed in a basement, and then buried out in a grave.  The violence in the film itself is of course quite strong and bloody, but it is what you would expect from a Scorsese film, which is nothing too new in itself.

The supporting cast all excellent as well, and Don Riccles, a well established American comedian, puts in a fine performance playing the straight man for once, as Billy Sherbert the casino manager.  Frank Vincent also does really well as Frank Marino, one of Nicky's main crime partners, and this time around after playing Billy Batts in Goodfellas, who get's brutally murdered by Joe Pesci's character Tommy, Frank gets revenge on Pesci's character Nicky, by being his own nemesis.  James Woods is terrific in a small role too, as Lester Diamond, the lowlife pimp who Ginger can't seem to leave behind, and Woods himself delivers one of my favourite lines in the film, as he bitches to Ginger about her daughter Amy who winds him up, "I'm going to send this kid to Bolivia in a fucking box!!".  And as usual even Martin Scorsese's mother, Catherine Scorsese gets involved in the film, playing the mother of an incompetent mob boss, Artie Piscano (played by Vinny Vella), and the two of them almost have a little comedy duet going on, where she chastises her son for using bad language, and he keeps swearing.  

Moving onto the music in Casino, which again plays a integral part of the film, and Scorsese makes great use of old classic tracks from bands such as The Rolling Stones, Devo, Roxy Music, Nilsson, Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Beck, Crean and Otis Redding.  My favourite use of a track in the film comes in the scene where Nicky kills off one of the mob's problems, a real-estate agent Anna Scott, and the track which I don't know the name of, is a cheery organ number, which offsets the murder scene itself.  I also like the use of The Animals "House of the Rising Sun", which acts perfectly as a moral foreboding as the events of the film unravel at the end, with all the mob associates being arrested by the FBI, or being bumped off.

Soooooo after that pretty exhaustive analysis on Casino, I still rate it as one of my favourite films from American cinema in recent years, and it definitely deserves its place in the epic crime dramas from the last 30 or 40 years.

And I will it leave it there.