Casino

Year: 1995

Grade: A-

Country: USA

Director: Scorsese

Review

the heavy use of voice-over is my only gripe with this film. i thought it was a bit over-used, but i also think that it fit well with the flow of the film. the film is very musical in its structure and style. so much so that much of it played out like a narrated music video, but with a lot more class than is usually associated with the “music video” title. i think there were only a couple pieces of music written for the film, which is unusual, especially for an epic (the film is just shy of three hours and chronicles the rise and fall of the mob in las vegas so i think it qualifies). a lot of people seem to think that casino is just a remake of goodfellas, set in a different place, but i think that casino stands on its own because it does have a different approach to the genre. it’s undoubtedly a scorsese film, but it is different from goodfellas. i’d have to see goodfellas again to make a case, so just trust me. sharon stone is great as are deniro and pesci. i don’t have a strong case for this, but i’ll put it out there anyway…to me this film sort fits into a crime-noir genre. it begins with the apparent death of deniro, it has a clear femme fatale, the vast majority of the film takes place either inside or outside at night, and it paints a cynical view of life (las vegas is turned into a consumerist hell hole, pesci dies, stone dies, deniro escapes death, but is seriously demoted…) .