A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. It may also be combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops or other tourist attractions. A casino can also be a place where entertainment such as live music and comedy shows are hosted.
While Casino has its moments (like the popped eyeball torture sequence and the sound-designed baseball bat beating), it’s mostly just a run-of-the-mill gangster story, with Robert De Niro’s Ace Rothstein as the gangster-bookie-hero and Sharon Stone’s feisty trophy wife/con-artist-from-hell, who keeps getting pushed around by the guy she married. When the movie takes them out of casinos into deserts, apartments and their tumultuous relationship, it begins to plod.
But when the movie is in its casino mode, it’s truly amazing, a showcase for what the great directors do best. Scorsese is an unrivaled master of camera movements, angles and framing so that the movie streaks across the screen like fast-moving water over rocks. If it’s a notch below his best, such as Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, it’s still streets ahead of anybody else out there. And Sharon Stone gives one of the performances of her career, proving that she can do anything a man does when she’s in her element.
