Review of Casino (1995) by Sinadoom — 18 Jul 2014

Out of all the gangster films - The godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, Carlito's Way - none of them managed to get across how frightening it can be to trust some people in the same way. The length is not unnecessary - all of it is used to develop the story and characters with excellent narration and acting.

You see a film like Scarface and it's mostly just a montage - a brilliant one, but nevertheless too much jumping around. However, Casino manages to get the story across in a very believable way. The personal issues are so deeply explored, and the fact that Robert De Niro is a "good guy" really adds an extra perspective.

In every other film, everyone ends up being a baddy and gets whacked or goes to jail. But in this one, it was interesting to see the story from two perspectives - De Niro's and Pesci's. The two actors suited their characters' roles perfectly, and the pacing was inline with how quickly one can imagine events developed.

The rise, the top and the fall all got their relative share of the action according to how long they last. Best of all, the movie was not about doing crime for the sake of it - it was actually mostly about business and not killing people randomly with a few deals being used as a cover-up.

The direction and general style of story and development etc. are almost identical to Goodfellas, so if you enjoyed that this is definitely worth watching as well.