CASINO

CASINO is my kind of movie. The good folks at The Christian Film and Television Commission report a total of 553 obscenities (a record at the time this film was released), 17 profanities, 3 blasphemies and a pagan world view which includes, among other things, graphic indignities, baseball bat bludgeonings, car bombs, live burials, human heads being used as battering rams, a new meaning for the word “pen knife” and a most unappetizing “honker hoagie.” Leave it to Director Martin Scorsese to roll a winner with this high octane, virile and violent depiction of the early days of Las Vegas. Blessed at every turn with excellent production values, CASINO's three-hour long journey into the dark underside of the American Dream is as slick as the salt shaker at Church's Fried Chicken.

Robert DeNiro shines as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, whose blazers blaze more neon than Dion could possibly imagine. The natty attire belies Sam's more calculating mind and reputation as simply the sharpest gambler of them all, and he is rewarded by the Kansas City mob to run the newly-built Tangiers Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Joe Pesci virtually steals the show as the short-fused Nicky Santoro, a long-time pal of Sam's who arrives on the scene to carve a place for himself among the high rollers. This wild card is no joker, and Sam's charmed life is soon complicated by Nicky's pugnacious presence. Still, all goes extremely well until the glitter and the glamour give way to the glandular and Sam falls for Ginger (Sharon Stone). There's no beating around this bush, Ms. Stone flashes the screen performance of her life as an ex-hooker with a heart of brass, deservedly winning the Oscar for Best Actress in 1995.

Supporting roles are top notch, with special kudos to Don Rickles as a flunky floor manager, James Woods as a pimping parasite and Scorsese's own mother, Catherine, as a mind-your-own-business mama familias.

In the end, of course, the skimmers get skimmed, Nicky gets too nasty, Ginger goes gonzo and the FBI closes in on the entire operation. The Great Plains Goombahs back in Kansas City are forced to take necessary action as they kill (often quite creatively) every runner, slotwad, henchman and corrupto that could possibly talk.

Adapted from a true story from Las Vegas' frontier days, CASINO is well worth renting from your local video store. If nothing else, Thelma Schoonmaker's ebullient editing will impress upon even the most casual viewer the power and the beauty of this often overlooked art. This woman is simply one of the very best, beginning with her brilliant work on WOODSTOCK where she literally learned on the job.

Alas, the Nevada desert is a far different place today. The earliest “adult-oriented” gambling meccas have been imploded to make room for a new generation of theme-park-like facilities designed to lure the entire family. Mob rule and the teamster pension fund have been replaced by corporate rulers and junk bonds. Still, everything remains “arranged” to get your money, sooner or later. At night the lights shine brighter than ever, but in some ways the strip is more insidious. As Sam's voice-over declares at the end of the picture, “Now, while the kids fight cardboard pirates, papa is off losing their college tuition and the house mortgage money.” In Vegas, a family that plays together often stays together…in poverty.