The film, based on Nicholas Pileggi’s contemporaneous book, covers a large story fraught with telling political, social and economic implications, but Scorsese and Pileggi tell it by concentrating on three central figures: Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a top gambler installed by the Kansas City mob to run their casino, which he does brilliantly Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), Ace’s longtime best friend and impulsively violent enforcer who introduces street thuggery to the Vegas scene, and Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), a veteran hustler who marries Ace for his money, falls into Nicky’s arms when she becomes unhappy and ends up helping to drag them, and the empire around them, down.īeginning with a startling car explosion that seemingly blows Ace Rothstein sky high, pic expands on Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” technique of introducing his characters, their milieu and m.o. After tearing up the city for years, while meeting (and sometimes killing) a few enemies along the way, the group draws more and more attention to each other, leading to a variety of dangerous consequences, including putting their relationships and careers on the line.Announcing its far-reaching operatic intentions in a flamboyant credit sequence, the film is a Paradise Lost about low-lifes, a story of the big one that got away, the bookend to “Bugsy,” an ironic tale about how some highly individualistic criminals had the whole world in their hands only to fumble it and blow the game for themselves. This is until his hot-headed, childhood friend, Nicky Santoro, played by Pesci, and ex-prostitute wife, Ginger, played by Sharon Stone, come into the mix and change every for both Sam and Las Vegas. Scamming the casino system without a game license, Sam finds immediate success at the new job. Sam “Ace” Rothstein, played by De Niro, is a low-level mobster assigned to the head of Tangiers Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Based on a true story, and adapted to the screen by Nicholas Pileggi ( Goodfellas’ writer) the story shows ‘Sin City’ being completely corrupted and overrun by the mafia during the 1970s.

The 1995 classic, Casino teams up Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci for another Martin Scorsese gangster movie this time in the explosive city of Las Vegas.

Casino 1995 review