Casino (Movie Review)

If you’re a fan of organised crime capers or simply enjoy watching talented actors at work, Casino is well worth your time. Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are in top form but it’s Sharon Stone who steals the show as feisty blonde hustler Ginger McKenna. She’s an opportunistic, addicted to anything femme fatale most men would be happy to tame and it’s her character that provides the film with its driving force.

Based on a book written by Nicholas Pileggi with full access to a mobster who ran four casinos, Casino is a gripping story of betrayal and destruction. Where Goodfellas took a ground-level view of blue collar gangsters, Casino gives us a bird’s eye view of the guys who controlled those hoods and the downward spiral that inevitably followed as lust, greed, and hubris turned them into predatory animals.

The movie is rich in the kind of details that make you feel like a fly on the wall at all times. From the sloppy, slovenly way that the casino cooks put “exactly the same number of blueberries in every muffin” to the harrowing airborne Feds circling in their spy planes, there’s plenty to keep you interested.

There is also the compelling drama of how the gamblers are sucked into this world by their addiction to winning. According to a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University, it’s because the brain is stimulated by gambling and its risk taking, which generates natural feel-good chemicals called endorphins.