There have been a lot of movies set in Sin City, but few captured the actual history of this town of vice quite like Casino. Martin Scorsese, with full access to a mobster who once ran four casinos in Vegas, crafted a fascinating story based on actual events and packed it with top-notch actors. The result is a fascinating look at how the mob skimmed millions from Vegas and, ultimately, lost.
From the opening scene with a car bombing, Casino grabs the viewer and never lets up. The cast is uniformly excellent, with Robert De Niro delivering a tour de force performance as Sam “Ace” Rothstein. His ability to convey a wide range of emotions with his eyes and facial expressions is nothing short of astounding.
Casino is also a fascinating look at the psychology of gambling. Gambling isn’t just a game of chance, it’s an art form that requires skill, strategy and the willingness to take risks. And while there are those who can win big, the majority of gamblers lose money in the long run. This is because every casino game has a built-in house edge that will eventually grind them down into profitability. Casinos know this mathematically and use a variety of tricks to keep players playing longer. For example, most casino tables do not have clocks on them and are intentionally designed without windows to conceal the passage of time. This is one of the reasons why most first-time players are surprised to learn that the free drinks at a casino actually cost them money.
Like his earlier Goodfellas, Casino is a film that is as much about character as it is about gangster life. And while some might argue that Casino lacks the pizzazz of Goodfellas, it still delivers an equally compelling account of how fucked up that lifestyle is.
Interestingly, Casino also has the benefit of being less violent than its predecessor. And while the movie is not without its fair share of truly hellacious violence, including a torture-by-vice sequence with a popped eyeball and a sound-designed baseball bat beating that had to be trimmed down for an NC-17 rating, it never gets too grotesque. The violence in Casino is more believable and more focused on the characters and their decisions, which helps to attribute more tragedy when they meet their demise.
The story is a fascinating look at the mob’s relationship with Las Vegas and how the mobster’s attempts to control the casinos were foiled by a system that was built on the back of gambling psychology. But it’s also a film that shows how casinos, even without the mob, are rigged and can be exploited by those who understand probability and game theory.
For anyone who loves a good story, Casino is the movie for you. And the performances, especially from De Niro and Sharon Stone, are simply incredible. And it’s a film that proves that not all gangster movies need to be over the top and over-the-top with violence.