Review of Casino (1995) by Swati — 05 Mar 2014

Scorsese keeps coming back to the same theme and subject matter_ debauchery and its pitfalls. And he has found himself actors who are able to convey his message effectively. Casino deals with this subject in the business of gambling.

Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is doing good running a casino for the Mafia in 1970s Las Vegas. Things get tricky as first Ginger (Sharon Stone) and then Nicky (Joe Pesci) come into his life. They're both unstable and careless, and have no vision for their futures like Sam has. Their antics get him into trouble time and again.

Like Scorsese's other movies, the plot takes a backstage to the characters and their personal quirky moments. He instead relies on multiple voice-overs to propel the plot forward. The plot does thicken with time, and not for good. It felt like he wasn't sure if he should concentrate on the characters or the plot development. Goodfellas found that balance ingeniously, so did his later movie The Wolf of Wall Street, both of which deal with the same themes.

The acting was sufficient, I suppose. De Niro does a decent enough job. Pesci's character is too similar to the one he played in Goodfellas. In essence, he is a character actor. Sharon Stone also did a good job.

I couldn't feel excited during a single scene in the entire movie. There was no sense of danger and urgency, despite the breakneck pacing. The film was just a scene after scene of greed, violence and narration. It got old after a while.

The production design, which brought the 1970s to life, did a wonderful job. The same camera angles were used as were in Goodfellas. The camera zooms in on people's faces the same way.

I found the movie a bit underwhelming. I felt like Scorsese wasn't done with the subject that he started out to tell in Goodfellas, and hence returned to it. He should have just made a single movie about it, or he should have made this one so different from the first that no one could have found any similarities.