Casino (Movie Review)

Casino is a classic movie about gangsters and gambling. It’s an entertaining and interesting film that makes you think about life and how people make decisions. The movie is about a man named Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) who has been working in Vegas for many years and has made millions of dollars. But he still believes in the old ways of doing things. He refuses to help the FBI catch his friend Nicky (Joe Pesci). Even though he knows that if he doesn’t do it now, he will lose everything he has worked so hard for.

Casinos are businesses that make their money by encouraging gamblers to spend their hard-earned money on chance games like blackjack, poker, craps, roulette, baccarat and slot machines. While casinos offer extravagant entertainment, musical shows, shopping centers, lighted fountains and lavish hotels to attract gamblers, they would not exist without the billions of dollars in profits from games of chance.

As any gambler will tell you, the odds are always stacked against you. This is why it is so important to play smart and know what you are doing before putting your money on the line. A good strategy is to play a few hands of a game you are familiar with before moving on to another. Also, never be afraid to walk away from a table or machine if you are losing. This will save you a lot of time and money.

While Casino does have a lot of plots, tangent stories and brilliant side-characters (James Woods is funny as lowlife con-man Artie Piscano; Vinny Vella is great as the long-suffering Artie’s brother) it is Sharon Stone who holds the screen with her dazzling performance. She’s a force to be reckoned with in this film and was totally robbed of an Oscar nomination for her work here.

Casino is a liminal movie, not just between Victorianism and Modernism but between finance and the frontier. It is situated in the rough blur of large corporations antiseptically displacing not just organized crime but organized labor as well. The foibles and corruptions of both groups are on display here, as is the interplay between mobsters and unions.

Casino is also a liminal movie in terms of how it portrays the changing nature of Las Vegas and American society. It straddles the line between nostalgia for a time that is gone forever and skepticism over what might replace it. In this way, it is similar to Boogie Nights a few years later.