Casino (2006, HD DVD)

Casino (1995)

Directed by the celebrated Martin Scorsese, Casino left me a little flat. I began to wonder if the billing as America's greatest living director had gone to his head...

Worse, I was left wondering if main character DeNiro's almost complete lack of emotion was part of the character, or was it because DeNiro can't act. I mused backwards through "Jackie Brown", "Heat", "Goodfellas", "Godfather;" nope, DeNiro really doesn't know how to show emotion. He even has a straight face when he yells. With DeNiro, I always feel like he could do more, why is there no emotion? He is no Clint Eastwood, who has made a trademark out of stoicism. No, I guess it must be limited acting ability. His strong ethnic appearance must be what gets him into gangster pictures!

While his quiet act worked well in "Goodfellas" where DeNiro played a close-mouthed Italian hoodlum who was not above executing his friends, here he plays a Jewish thug who specializes in gambling, quite a different part I would think. His unwelcome associate from back East is Joe Pesci, who invites himself in on DeNiro's action. Add Sharon Stone, a prostitute (and her pimp "boyfriend" James Woods) and you have a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen. Stone and Woods give the best performances of all. DeNiro and Pesci basically reprise their Goodfellas performances, but in this case, more is less. How many times can you see Joe Pesci brutally murder somebody and still cringe? When Pesci finally gets his overdue comeuppance, did you have to repress an urge to cheer?

Still, the movie was great in the depiction of Vegas behind-the-scenes. There was a lot of information presented that showed how crooked gambling was and how serious the people behind the glittering casinos are. It definitely reinforced my decision to stay away from them! The part Scorsese does best is where you see the path the money travels, all the way from the slot machines and tables, back to the back room where it is counted and packaged with high speed machinery that rivals the US mint. The irony is that some of the money gets "lost" during the process picked up by a bag man in plain sight of the unseeing accountants and transported back to the mafia dons in Kansas City as far west as they dare to go.

The biggest con about the movie, other than the repetitive characters we've seen before is the movie is t-h-r-e-e h-o-u-r-s l-o-n-g. It needs about 1 hour of useless footage cut, to make it a good film. Three Stars, only because it had its moments.

For people wanting a better gangster movie, try "Goodfellas", or White Heat, "Little Caesar", or "Public Enemy"