Five years after delivery Goodfellasthe most electric and boozy gangster movie ever, Martin Scorsese again with a crime reporter and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi to deliver his dark and definitive masterpiece on America itself: Casino. Arguably Scorsese’s finest hour, the bloody, glittering spill Casino perfectly embodies the spiritual rot at the heart of American capitalism.
Over the course of the film, the world of gangsters that the director finds strange companions with corporate and business interests in the heart of the desert, like a Mafia associate (Robert De Niro) moves out to Las Vegas to oversee the Tangiers casino on behalf of the people. Scorsese’s incredible technique makes the film’s three-hour running time fly by as one in a sea of neon, harsh dialogue, and raw brutality, but the overwhelming impression it leaves is one of horror.. Scorsese, editor Thelma Schoonmakerand a cinematographer Robert Richardson make dark magic here, with visuals that are gauzy and gorgeous to remember, and also somehow seem cheap and nightmarish – like the illusion of Vegas itself. De Niro, Joe Pesciand Sharon Stonealso, that all things were never better, casting themselves in characters as hateful as they are profitable.
And although the work of Scorses is always very responsible, in Casinoone line includes not only the film, but how the world of crime itself (and the films about it) changed in the 90s.
The Narrative That Explains The Horror Of ‘Casino’
About a third of the way through the movie, De Niro’s Sam “Ace” Rothstein (based on the real Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal) has finally received his gaming license after years of unofficially running the Tangiers casino, and is being rewarded for his “charitable work”. As cameras roll, and he is applauded, Ace’s voiceover says: “Back home, they would have put me in jail for what I’m doing. But out here, they give me awards“Ace’s simple baffled at how quickly and easily his criminal methods are absorbed by the “legitimate” world of Vegas politics perfectly captures the real life of Frank Rosenthal and the singular moment that Scorsese depicts, when old-school gangsters disappeared or were taken in by even bigger corporate predators.
Ace can never fully escape his street roots, however, and is brought down by his foolish devotion to Stone’s Ginger and Pesci’s psycho Nicky Santoro. Scorsese uses Ace’s demise as a backdrop for the decline of old-school criminal gangs and the rise of multi-national, multi-tental corporate overlords who take and take and destroy lives around the world with impunity.. A late film montage of old Vegas landmarks being torn down to make way for the new ones rhymes beautifully with a car bombing that Ace barely escapes with his life. Ace was never raised for the business world, although he certainly escapes from what happened to Nicky – one of the most terrible scenes in Scorsese’s cinematography.
Although Scorsese returned once more to the world of gangsters, from the point of view of old age and regret, in The Irishmannothing compares to the high monument to excess and terror that is Casino.
‘Casino’s greatest truth lies in “Holes In the Desert”
The best Hunter S. Thomson famously compared the American dream to “the vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the chaos at the last minute before dawn in an old Vegas casino” – and Scorsese makes it clear what the opposite of that dream is. In the breathless first 45 minutes of the film, Ace shows us the inner workings of the Tangiers and how precisely the casino is engineered to prevent big wins. It’s an intoxicating vision that eventually fades into the harsher reality it takes to maintain that illusion: “A lot of holes in the desert … and a lot of problems buried in those holes.”
That’s where Nicky Santoro and his brother end up after crossing one high level in management and becoming inconvenient for the “legitimate” world of casino bosses. Meanwhile, Ace ends up alone and nearly killed by the car bombing that opens the picture, as he marvels at a new Vegas rising from the rubble looking more like “Disneyland” than anything he remembers… This is one of Scorsese’s most devastating endings and the perfect metaphor for the rise of corporate capitalism and the lives and “problems” buried in its wake.. Martin Scorsese’s three-hour masterpiece is streaming for free on Tubi today.
- Release date
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November 22, 1995
- Running time
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179 minutes