Review of Casino (1995) by Movie G — 23 Aug 2011

Casino is a brilliant film and deserved more praise than it got, but is ultimately held down by the fact that it's just not as good as Goodfellas, which is an odd reason for someone who's never seen either since it's not a sequel, but for anyone who's seen both it's easy to see that it's a sequel at heart.

It has the same writer, same director, many of the same actors, same editor, some of the same soundtrack, it's almost the same movie. First off, the acting is brilliant. Robert DeNiro is great as always as Sam 'Ace' Rothstein, the head of the Tangiers Casino.

It's similar to his performance in Goodfellas, but it works in this movie aswell. Joe Pesci play Nick Spilantro, a crazy mob boss who just goes around killing lots of people, again the same as Goodfellas, the exact same actually which is sort of a fault to this movie.

I often find him annoying as I did in Goodfellas but he does a good job. Now comes the real highlight, Sharon Stone. She plays DeNiro's money obsessed, drug addict wife, and does it brilliantly. She's amazing throughout, but is the best later in the film when she starts breaking down.

Other than that nobody really has a huge part to mention. The writing is great. The plot is again like Goodfellas nonexistant, it just shows you what happened, butthe dialogue is great and seems real.

The directing and camerwork is again brilliant by Scorsese and has the same quick style as Goodfellas, the 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking' scene in particular is almost identical to the 'Sunday, May 11th' scene in Goodfellas.

The soundtrack is also awesome, it contains a lot of Rolling Stones, a Scorsese trademark, and surprisily a lot of Devo. The film is great because it teaches you just how Casino's worked back then, and it's fascinating.

Casino is a fantastic movie and a must see for fans of the genre.