Casino
"No one stays at the top forever."
In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.
"No one stays at the top forever."
In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.
Robert De Niro
Sam "Ace" Rothstein
Sharon Stone
Ginger McKenna
Joe Pesci
Nicky Santoro
James Woods
Lester Diamond
Don Rickles
Billy Sherbert
Alan King
Andy Stone
Kevin Pollak
Phillip Green
L.Q. Jones
Pat Webb
Dick Smothers
Senator
In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.
You know, I think this might be my favourite Scorsese movie. He re-assembles his regular cast, adds a soupçon of Sharon Stone and proceeds to make three hours of cinema fly by. It all centres around the aspirational "Sam Rothstein" (Robert De Niro) who realises that there is a great deal of money to be made in Las Vegas in the 1970s. To that end, he is sent by his mafia bosses to run the "Tangiers" casino, hotel and general den of iniquity. Initially, though ruthless enough, he has a degree of decency to him, and when he falls in love with hustler "Ginger" (Sharon Stone) things seem to suggest that maybe he could be destined for the straight(-ish) and narrow. The same can not be said for his friend "Santoro" (Joe Pesci) who comes out to join him - ostensibly to make sure he stays safe - and is soon up to no good fleecing whatever and whoever to pay for his hedonistic lifestyle. It'd have been dull if all had gone to plan, and of course it doesn't - "Rothstein" has to deal with crooks, authorities (not that they are mutually exclusive), his increasingly rogue wife and his downright liability of a friend. Things come to an head when his wife and her former beau/pimp "Diamond" (James Woods) force his hand, the gaming commission wants his licence and "Santoro" - well, he is just toxic. Pesci only ever really has one style of acting, and this is perfect for that. He adds a distinctly plausible nastiness to his frankly rather odious character. Stone features a bit too sparingly perhaps, but she certainly steals the scenes she shares with a measured and confident De Niro very much at the top of his game. A nice little twist at the end works very well, too! It's stylishly photographed and has a great look to it - good stuff, this.
Casino is not really much remembered by many people but for those who are Martin Scorsese, they'll know what to get from this. It has the same cast from GoodFellas, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci but I still can't believe that I haven't seen Raging Bull which I really want to. And I think they both starred in Once Upon a Time in America and I've heard that it's a really long film. With Robert De Niro's last collaboration between Martin Scorsese, this film is based on true events of what happened in Las Vegas, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci played Sam Rothstein, aka "Ace" and Nicholas Santoro, aka "Nicky", They're both childhood friends in real-life. It's kind of an interesting story about those two friends are getting a lot of heat on Las Vegas of who's going to run the Casino. I really like this movie even though it is very similar to GoodFellas with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci narrating but what can I say, there's nothing wrong with that and this is a phenomenal film with great performances and story and it has some good tunes in it. I am a fan gangster flicks and anything else and that's that.
New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.
A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death. Earl Macklin is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother.
John Gotti, the head of a small New York mafia crew breaks a few of the old family rules. He rises to become the head of the Gambino family and the most well-known mafia boss in America. Life is good, but suspicion creeps in, and greed, rule-breaking and his high public profile all threaten to topple him.
Long separated from his family, hitman Joshua returns to Brighton Beach for a contract killing for the Russian Mafia. His abusive father, Arkady, banned him from returning after Joshua committed his first murder. He takes up residence in a hotel, and soon everyone knows he has returned. He goes home to visit his dying mother, Irina, and prepares for the assassination, getting drawn back into the criminal community he left behind.
A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.
Laney is an attractive, intelligent suburban wife and devoted mother of two adorable children. She has the perfect husband who plays basketball with the kids in the driveway, a pristine house, and a shiny SUV for carting the children to their next activity. However, just beneath the façade lie depression and disillusionment that send her careening into a secret world of reckless compulsion. Only very real danger will force her to face the painful root of her destructiveness and its crumbling effect on those she loves.
An old gangster is advised that Freddie Mays would leave jail after thirty years in prison. His mood changes and he recalls when he was a young punk and who joined Freddie's gang—a man he both envied and ultimately betrayed.
After the funeral of one of their own, a criminal family decides to embark on an emotionally unnerving journey in an attempt to exact bloody revenge.
In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand, a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.
Two policemen, one an old-timer, the other his volatile younger partner, find themselves suspended when a video of their strong-arm tactics becomes the media's cause du jour. Low on cash and with no other options, these two embittered soldiers descend into the criminal underworld to gain their just due, but instead find far more than they wanted awaiting them in the shadows.