Few movies are as rich or as complicated as Casino, Martin Scorsese\u2019s ode to organized crime and the city of Las Vegas. While other mob pictures (like Goodfellas and Mean Streets) focus on blue-collar gangsters, this one looks at the guys who controlled those gangsters. It\u2019s fascinating stuff and, even though the film is about betrayal, lust, and destruction, it\u2019s also about how we\u2019re all a little bit like these characters.<\/p>\n
Based on a novel by Nicholas Pileggi, who had full access to the man who ran four casinos for the Mafia in Las Vegas in the 1970s, Casino makes us feel like eavesdroppers. The first hour or so plays almost like a documentary with narration from mobster Sam \u201cAce\u201d Rothstein (Robert De Niro) and others as they explain how the mob skimmed millions out of the casinos.<\/p>\n
The movie is a bit slow in the beginning but once it gets going it\u2019s hard to take your eyes off the screen. The directing is top-notch from Scorsese who knows how to use music and the camera to build suspense and drama. He also has a flair for the brutal. This is evident in a torture-by-vice sequence that includes the infamous popped eyeball scene.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s most interesting about Casino is how it illustrates the power of money. While the odds of winning are always in favor of the house \u2014 they lose 52% of the time on any given play \u2014 stretched over thousands and millions of plays, casinos still win billions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Few movies are as rich or as complicated as Casino, Martin Scorsese\u2019s ode to organized crime and the city of Las Vegas. While other mob pictures (like Goodfellas and Mean Streets) focus on blue-collar gangsters, this one looks at the guys who controlled those gangsters. It\u2019s fascinating stuff and, even though the film is about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n