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    		•

    FILMS

    Casino (1995)
  • Starring Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods, Don Rickles, Alan King, Kevin Pollak, L.Q. Jones, Dick Smothers

  • Directed by Martin Scorsese

    • Casino is a movie set in a bad town (Las Vegas) and follows the adventures of a bunch of bad people doing bad things to other bad people—all in the name of greed. Good people, standing on the sidelines, get hurt from the fallout and shrapnel of the bad people's overwhelming badness.

    Which is bad.

    But like Dark Helmet says in Space Balls, "Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb." And that pretty much holds true for this film, too. The good people are asking to get hurt, because they're dealing organized crime and money. It's dumb to think you can become involved with the Mafia and come out on top. And it's difficult not to get hurt when visiting Vegas. It's a town designed to pinch you.

    So, as you can see, it's hard to really like this movie when the characters—collectively, mind you—wouldn't know a good decision if it came up and bit them on the ass.

    Robert De Niro plays Ace Rothstein. We like Ace because he doesn't carry on with any of the messy, Mafioso garbage. He's a numbers man. He can play the odds better than anyone around. So the bosses put him in charge of a huge casino. Good for Ace! He's moving up in the world. But then he sees Ginger (Sharon Stone) and decides he's in love. Heaven help him.

    Sharon Stone one again breaks the type-casting mold barrier by portraying a slut. No, no. It's different than her other slutty roles. See, in this film, she's playing a drunkard slut. See? She's diversifying. Basically Stone's Ginger is an awful person who spreads awfulness to everyone who comes in contact with her. She like a human equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. (Take that for whatever it's worth. I typed it, but am quite unsure what I meant by it. So, well, there it is.) This is bad news for Ace who wants to love her. If I were him, I'd feel dirty just knowing she's in the same building. Yukky, yukky Stone. Bad, nasty, filthy Stone.

    Joe Pesci is Nicky Santoro. Nicky is a complete wack-job. He stabs people in the neck with fountain pens, for reasons like, oh, hrm, he didn't like the way some guy looked at him. Nicky is the type of guy that will screw everything up, and then kill people because of his screwup. He's not afraid of jail or cops. I won't give away the ending, other than to say he should be afraid of cornfields.

    There's a whole slew of other people in the film, recognizable faces that have lesser roles. Casino is really just about Ace, Ginger, and Nicky. And their complete inability to do the right thing.

    Casino is not very good. Years ago I was a huge Martin Scorsese fan and looked forward to watching anything done by him. But now ... eh. Take him or leave him, I could care less.

    Casino drags on and on. It's inflated and corpulent and just tiring to watch. Seriously, how many times can Ace not realize that Nicky is a scumbag and Ginger is a whore, er, horrible person? Scene after scene of Ace being stupid. Enough, we get the idea.

    So maybe Dark Helmet had it wrong. Maybe Evil always wins, not because they're smart, but because they're rarely as dumb as Good.

    The interior logic of the film crumbles like so many cookies. Why would anyone trust their lives to Sharon Stone, especially when she proven time and time again that she's not trustworthy. Casino attempts to explain that this blindness has something to do with love and deep understanding. I don't buy that. I think that Ace, for all his gambling knowledge, is not incredibly self-aware and has an uncanny ability to make one bad decision. Over. And over. And over again.

    And maybe this is why there's a small part of me that actually enjoys this film. Because, watching Casino, I realize that, however poor my judgement can be at times, it will never be as bad as the characters' judgement in this film. Sure I make mistakes, but they never will be as bountiful, awe-inspiring, or far-reaching as those of Ace, Ginger, and Nicky in Casino. And that makes me happy.

    Addendum: I'm finding that, sometimes, my reviews can be swayed one way or another by either the mood I'm in when I watch the film, or the mood I'm in when I write the review.

    I was somewhat grumpy when I wrote up the review Casino, mostly because I was thinking how much I hated Sharon Stone, and how vile and disgusting she is.

    For the record: I avoid her movies like the plague, and I generally won't watch any Sharon Stone film. Or at least I try not to.

    Having said that, I watched Casino and found parts of it enjoyable—despite Stone being in it. So De Niro and Pesci must've really pulling their weight. They're both so good in this film that even Sharon Stone couldn't completely ruin it for me.