FilmReviews: Martin Scorsese's Casino

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Just finished watching Casino directed by Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver,Raging Bull) and stars Robert DeNiro (GoodFellas),Joe Pesci (Home Alone),Sharon Stone (1990's Total Recall),Don Rickles,Alan King,L.Q Jones and Don Rickles.The film's plot basically is about greed,deception,money,power and murder's occurence between two mobster best friends and a trophy wife over a gambling empire.In other words,the film's plot is about the high rise and the downfall of a high-roller's gambling empire.

Casino's star powered performances is just one of the factors that made this film great.Robert DeNiro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein,a Vegas high-roller whose gambling empire immediately rises and slowly falls.As always,Mr.DeNiro acts really smoothly in Casino,thus he delivers his lines flawlessly.But he's really not the one that attracted me here in terms of performances in fact it is Joe Pesci,who plays Nicky Santoro,Sam's  boyhood friend who screams in here all the time and acts boss.I have to say,he was really good here.He would really fit in a movie where he would play a mobster's right hand man.Seriously,he really was great in here.He uses profanity in almost every scene and uses it in a very "gangster" way.'Nuff said.He was just great.Sharon Stone's acting here is also really nice as she play Sam's wife.The scenes which had her in an argument were just nice,she was even better than Michelle Pffeifer in Scarface who plays the gangster's wife.Aside from the powerful storyline and incredible performances from the lead,one of the things i loved in Casino was the great camera work.Specially in the opening scene and the scenes where the camera moves on from one person to another.It was just amazing.Casino really didn't have a musical score,but instead,it had music.Las Vegas style music which sticked to it really well.And yes,that music worked.In a darkly funny way,some whimsical music were played during some scenes that had beating,and it turned out to be well.Martin Scorsese's direction was ever great,as always.But not as great as Taxi Driver was.But still,since this is a Scorsese picture,it's a masterpiece even if it's underrated.The movie is great,it had dark themes but they were meaningful,i think the reason why the film is underrated because the film's pacing was slow and unenergizing.People thought that it needed more gun fights and explosions.But all in all,Casino didn't really need all that.The film was great for it's depiction of the dirtiness of Las Vegas,the incredible star power performances and the amazing direction by veteran director,Martin Scorsese. The film might be underrated,but it is great.

Casino gets 8.4 stars over 10.

*Casino is available on DVD alongside other Scorsese classics like Taxi Driver distributed by Magnavision Home Video


Anyway,check out this argument scene from the film which has Joe Pesci screaming all over.

*Video courtesy by Movieclips.com