Casino (1995)
My journey through gangster films made by guys who don't like cape movies continues, mostly in anticipation of The Irishman, which I'm rather annoyed won't be coming to cinemas near me. I’ll have to hijack someone’s Netflix. While I'm familiar with Goodfellas of course and have even seen the now rather ancient feeling Mean Streets, this is one Scorsese mob flick I'd never got around to seeing, but I'm glad I did. It might as well be
Goodfellas Part II, it follows more or less the same formula and manages to pull it off just as well in my opinion.
There's no shortage of places I'd like to be a time tourist, and while I don't even count gambling among my vices Vegas in the '60s and '70s is one place and time I am a bit sad I'll never be able to experience in all its
Fear and Loathing glory. And Robert De Niro's character perfectly sums up in the last five minutes of the film why I'm not remotely interested in visiting today. But seeing the decline of the town the mob built through the eyes of those who were there, albeit in a fictionalised form, is probably the closest I'm going to get and that alone was enough for me to enjoy Casino immensely.
De Niro, Stone and particularly Pesci are all on fine form and it's nice to see Frank Vincent play a larger role here, the guy had a great screen presence that he'd later get to put to good use as Phil Leotardo (once again) in The Sopranos. I’m starting to run out of gangster media now, which worries me. I’m two seasons deep in Boardwalk Empire and after that I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
They're likely pushing it into people's recommendations on Amazon Prime due to the Eddie Murphy biopic, but I also totally independently happened to watch this with a friend last week (this post has sat in drafts for a while). We were just looking for something daft that could kill a couple of hours and raise a smile, and it certainly managed that. The direction, editing (those goddamn cuts) and most of the acting is absolutely terrible (that final scene that lasts all of about ten seconds had us in stitches through the credits) but you're right about Moore's charisma shining through, particularly in the scenes where it seems like he's allowed to just relax and be himself. He's not a guy I really knew anything about going into the film, I happened to jokingly comment "this is how Dolemite invented rap" before being a bit mind-blown to find out afterwards that he kinda
did.
Going back to the Scorsese debate, I think the existence and success of films like Dolemite proves there's always room for films that, despite being pure entertainment and far from high art, manage to connect with their audiences. Roll on the sequels.
