Vintage

Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert DeNiro), a flourishing Casino mogul living in the heedy heyday of mob heaven Vegas, seen it all.  From courting super lovely and out-of-control worker girls like Ginger (Sharon Stone) to having turn the keys on his car and watching it go up like the real estate market in the early 00s.

Casino, a story masterfully orchestrated by Martin Scorsese, is the story of Rothstein (DeNiro) and the building and undoing of a mob empire. 

The film scores well in nearly every regard and were it not for the fact that Goodfellas had not come along beforehand in 1988, then Casino might just be the best damn mob movie ever.  Still, it is in the conversation with Goodfellas, Godfather I and II; makes my top five (although there is room for debate on what No. 5 would be).

In many ways I can't help but compare it to Goodfellas, even Raging Bull, as it reunites DeNiro and Pesci in an explosively violent dance of character, emotion, crime, passion, brutality, entertainment and dangerous, glamorous high-living that most people can only dream of having experienced.

Casino is based on the true story of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, a Jewish, ex-Casino manager, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and the Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago mob from the 1970s until the early 1980s. Joe Pesci's character, Nicky Santoro, is based on the accounts of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro.

Living in Florida today, Rosenthal is banned for life from ever setting foot in Vegas.  Not that there is any reason to go back.  After all, as the film points out in narration "The town will never be the same...  There was a time when the dealers knew what you drank and what your name was....  Today it is like Disney World.  The Great Pyramids have all been rebuilt with Junk Bonds."  

The legendary scenes in Casino are too numerous too mention yet that is what I am going to do.  Some of my most favorites are the ones involving Rothstein picking up a pen from a bar and asking the man next too him if it is his pen.  The man inexplicably says "yeah, take that pen and go stick it up your ass." 

On that note, Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro (Pesci) grabs the pen from Rothstein (DeNiro) and jambs in into the man's neck repeatedly and repeatedly until the asshole is left whimpering like a child on the floor of the Casino. To paraphrase, Santoro says something like "Where is the tough guy who told my friend to go stick the pen up his ass?" 

You see in this world you don't sign on the dotted line with your soul. You just get the fucking pen jabbed in your neck if you step out of line. That is the world of Casino.  

Perhaps there is more symbolism here than I should give credit for because I think the power of this scene is partly derived from the pen because it symbolizes something.  After all, why is it a pen that is laying on the bar versus say an ashtray or a cocktail glass?  After all, the man to whom it belonged was schmoozing some broad. Why did he have a pen on the bar? 

Now lets be clear. I am not proposing the pen is some kind of Freudian dick on the bar.  To me, a pen represents the world of legitimate contracts and business. To me, the pen symbolizes the world that Rothstein and Santoro have shunned, disdained, cast off.  Then when the man insults Rosenthal, Rosenthal is trying to figure out why (why the business world does not accept him as legitimate?) but as he can't find an answer, Spilotro steps in and takes the business tool and punishes the legitimate world with it.  He makes it "cry like a girl" is the words he uses.  Maybe that is reading too much into it?  Maybe it is all the more reason why Scorsese is a genius filmmaker.  Maybe somebody should take a pen and jab me in the fucking neck?  But, let me finish. 

The raw beauty of this scene has nothing to do with power but rather in the nuance in the wake of assault. The scene freezes or slows down to almost a still frame and Rothestein and Santoro are caught in a moment in time.  They are staring down at the bloody man on the floor of the bar.  The look we get is into the humanity of both Rothstein and Santoro as humans who question for a moment, ever so briefly, their previously unquestionable life as perhaps misguided gangsters who want to believe that at the heart of all the brutality lies some kind of high-minded mob code, a chivalry if you will, that justifies just abut everything they steal, everyone that gets whacked, everyone that gets buried in a corn field alive.  Vegas is a bloody paradise to them and woe to anyone who doesn't understand, respect and even comprehend the rules of their world. 

There is some heavy influences or pedigree signatures of most of the great Scorsese films.  When Rothstein first meets Ginger wreaking havoc in the Casino, Rothstein is mesmerized by her chaotic personality.  He stands there watching her in slow motion as she saunters away having stole the limelight oblivious to the commotion and turmoil she has caused and the ripple affect in world where Rothstein can accept no ripples. 

This is almost a mirror of the scene in Goodfellas when Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) stands up his date and the maniacal Karen (Lorraine Bracco) arrives all pissed off at the mob store and lambastes him in front of all the other mob crew pasta munchers.  Is it such the mating call of mob belles that mob men are attracted to women that can deliver as much hell as they see on a daily basis?

The acting on part of DeNiro as Rothstein and Pesci as Santoro is unmatched.  I don't think I know of an acting tandem that have a better chemistry onscreen like them. Another favorite part of mine is when Santoro lays into a poor tax accountant in the living room of Rothstein's garish ranch home. He wants his money back from the tax accountant because of some unfavorable development, which I did not quite follow.  

Joe Pesci is scarily brilliant as Santoro.  He stares at the tax man with the cold eyes of a calculated sociopath and to paraphrase, says to soft fellow "Just so we are clear, let me explain to you what I do.  I am going to the bank tomorrow and you better have my money....  If you don't, guess what?  I am going to crack your head open in front everyone because I don't give a fuck about jail.  Then, when you are coming out of comma, guess what (smiles)... I am going to be there when you come out of coma and I am going to crack your head open again.  That's what I do."

DeNiro trying to smooth it all over is almost comical.  Here they get into this bickering exchange nearly reminiscent of the Odd Couple. 

Then there are the segments where Santoro has what could only be described as "petting the dog" type moments to emphasize that he is indeed human.  How is that achieved?  Well, no matter how many heads he puts in a vice to make an eyeball burst ("Charlie M.  Charlie M.  You make me squeeze an eyeball out of your fucking head to protect that piece of shit!") - he is home to pour syrup over his kid's buttermilk pancakes.  Now, that is being a father.

I could go on all day about Casino.  But, take it from me, you don't need to get your hand bashed to smithereens with a ballpean hammer to take a peek under this Coolfilmz hole card - this is one is Ace.