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Casino by Rob
In a
slightly dodgy shop in the centre of the town I live in is a fine
collection of second hand videos. In that selection of videos, I
discovered there was a special section dedicated to Robert De Niro.
Heaven, I thought. Having worked my way through a selection of the
Robert De Niro videos (Goodfellas, Godfather Series, and Heat, amongst
others, included), I decided to get the Casino video.
Casino is basically your typical Robert De Niro film. He plays his
usual role as lead gangster/Mafia member. Except this time he's a
Casino running lead ganster/Mafia member. Oh, and he's kindly assisted
in his role by the great, and often highly underrated in terms of 'one
of the best ever actprs', Joe Pesci. Oh, I forgot, he's also assisted
by the highly irritating Sharon Stone. Why do I keep typing "Oh"? Why
am I asking myself that? Ah well, back to the point.
De Niro plays the lead role as per usual as the character of Sam. Pesci
is his best mate, called Nicky, and they move to Las Vegas to run a
Casino. Sam runs the Casino, Nicky uses his "muscle" to keep a lot of
things in order. That's how they used to run business out of town, and
now they are bringing it to Vegas. The gist of the story is that De
Niro finds a lady, gives her money, and she goes strange. Scrap that,
she was already strange as she was a prostitute and a druggy. That
woman, by the way, is called Ginger and played by Sharon Stone. The
usual "Falling empire" thing happens where Sam and Pesci fall out,
Ginger sleeps with Sam, Nicky and De Niro are followed by the FBI and
they get discovered. The only thing that seems to change in the
"Falling empire" formula is the ending. In this film Ginger runs off
and dies from overdose, Nicky gets killed by the bosses who run his
operations, and Sam manages to get away scot-free (aside from a botched
attempt to kill him).
What sets this film apart from the other films like it is the strong
cast. De Niro is of his usual excellence (has any guy perfected a role
to this status? Apart from Kevin Spacey playing the guy with the
deformed leg) and Pesci is brilliantly convincing even though it took me
half an hour of the film to accept him as being physically threatening.
Sharon Stone, however, is excellent in her role as druggy/alcoholic/nutter/prostitute
and is highly irritating. I mean irritating in the good way and not the
"get the fuck off of my screen because you can't act" sort of way. Good
casting for my liking.
Overall, the film is about 2 and a half hours long, but at times it felt
a lot longer. It delivers in great acting and all that, but at times it
seems to skip past parts of the story too quick. Good film though.
It's an excellent film if you like De Niro and want to see him in good
action. Good start, satisfactory ending, and a fair bit of time in
between. Nice film.
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