Summary:
Adapted from the true story of Las Vegas mobsters Lefty Rosenthal and Tony Spilotro.
My Thoughts:
I’ve seen quite a few Martin Scorsese (“After Hours”, “Hugo”) movies at this point in my life. He is one of the best working men in the business, and even his lesser entries (“Casino” being one of them) are usually still an impressive feat, filled with plenty of brilliant cinematic moments. “Casino” is far from my favorite Scorsese film, though it in no way a bad movie; in fact, it’s a pretty decent flick. With Scorsese however, a ‘pretty decent flick’ is below average. Just looking back at Scorsese’s career, I find it’s easier to make a list of the films I don’t consider masterpieces than it would be to compile a list of those that I do hold in that regard.
“Casino” is a very well made movie, and for the most part it’s pretty entertaining. However, while this film is well made, it is also three hours long, and it isn’t nearly as compelling or event-filled as some of Scorsese’s other crazy biopics like “Goodfellas” or “The Wolf of Wall Street”, and that right there makes it difficult for me to champion this film today ahead of Scorsese’s other works. If I’m going to sit down to rewatch an epic Scorsese film, personally, would much rather sit down to watch “The Aviator”, “The Departed”, or even another one of Scorsese’s lesser films, “Gangs of New York”. This film is good, but it’s just so long, and a lot of the film is just standing around in casinos and waiting for things to happen.
“Can I trust you?”
“Casino” tells the true story of Lefty Rosenthal and Tony Spilotro, in the film, their names are changed to Ace Rosenstein (Robert De Niro, “Brazil”) and Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci, forthcoming “The Irishman”). Both men played pivotal rolls in running the Las Vegas casinos for the Chicago mob during the 70s and 80s. Also involved in the story is Rosenthal’s wife Ginger (Sharon Stone, “The Disaster Artist”) and Ginger’s ex-boyfriend Lester (James Woods, “Videodrome”).
Alright, lets get my biggest qualms out of the way first: pacing and length. For the most part, I really enjoy this film, but again, it is incredibly long, and I felt like a lot of parts, while objectively important to the overall story, didn’t add a ton to the actual film. I know this movie was adapted from a book by Nicholas Pileggi (whom coincidentally also wrote the book Wise Guy, which was the source material for “Goodfellas”), and I also know that when Scorsese adapts films from books, he tends to cram as much material as he can into the movies as he can, and usually that makes for some incredibly lively, incredibly flashy filmmaking. Look at “The Wolf of Wall Street”- that film just flows from one scene into another, fueled by drugs and money and women, it just never slows down. “The Aviator” is the same way, it just feels like something is always happening in Howard Hughes’s life; we’re constantly moving forward to see what happens next.
In this movie, I never felt that forward momentum that usually runs through Scorsese’s films. I was never bored; I was always interested to see what came next, but I was never leaning forward in my seat. When I watch films like “Taxi Driver” or “The Departed”, I find it’s nigh impossible to turn away from the screen; I’m constantly engaged with what’s happening. In this film, there are a lot of moments where the pacing seems to lag a little bit, and really that’s just because of the perspective of the story. This film is told from one of the Chicago mobs higher-ups perspectives; Ace Rosenstein is not Henry Hill (“Goodfellas”). Rosenstein sits at the top of the pile and delegates the dirty work, while Henry Hill is stuck in the trenches with the foot soldiers. Overall, Hill’s story is just more interesting to watch.
Other than pacing and length issues however, this film is incredibly well made. The way that Scorsese weaves his narrative together is absolutely brilliant. He likes to use a lot of voiceovers to tie scenes together, so we’ll have one scene flow into another flow into another and flow into another. In a three-hour movie, that does a ton to cut down on pacing issues. For the most part it helps to make the story feel more fluid and kinetic, but it also does the opposite; when we stop to have long scenes of dialogue, those scenes feel longer than they actually are. From a directing standpoint, Scorsese is on top form as always. There are tons of great lengthy shots that use deep staging; even plenty of scenes where the entire thing is done in one shot.
I also like the way Scorsese builds the world of the Casinos around the characters. He lets us know how the system works, who’s in charge, who’s responsible when things go wrong… he pulls back the curtain on a mobster lifestyle and just lays it bare for us to see, and honestly, that’s why people go to Scorsese’s mob movies anyways, for their sense of realism.
(SOME MILD SPOILERS) While this movie is far less violent overall than “The Departed” or “Goodfellas”, it does have the most brutal death scene I’ve seen in a Scorsese film. Near the end of the film when two characters are beaten to death with bats, and holy cow, talk about brutality. The Al Capone baseball scene in “Untouchables” has nothing on the execution at the end of this film. There are some images that always stick with you, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be a long time before I ever forget that. While I’m not sure if iconic is the right word to describe that scene, I know that scene is probably the film’s most memorable.
Verdict:
Overall, this is a very solid film, and I think that those who love Scorsese will get a lot of entertainment out of it. However, if you’re a casual moviegoer and don’t see that many flicks, know that there are a half dozen better Scorsese films out there for you to watch, and some of them even star the same people (“Goodfellas”, “Raging Bull”). I found this film to be entertaining, and I may, someday, return to this, but I’m far more likely to revisit his other films before I come back to this one.
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