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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stupid criminals in paradise, March 17, 2004
This review is from: Casino (DVD)
I was born in Chicago, and my father went to Stienmetz high school with Tony Spilotro, the mobster portrayed in this film by Joe Pesci. I grew up listening to stories about "the Ant" (not flattering), and when he was finally whacked, my old man (a reporter for the Chicago Sun Times) wrote what amounted to his obitiuary. In it he recalled such charming Spilotro antics as the time he threw acid at a girl who had rebuffed his advances and the time he tried to split open my dad's head, and thus prevent my birth, with a T-square during shop class. To top it off, I recently discovered my Dad's old yearbook (1955 or so), in which he and the future boss of Las Vegas are standing in true 1950s glory (slicked hair, plaid shirts, everybody wearing horn-rimmed glasses) next to each other on picture day. So I guess you could say I had a personal interest in seeing how Marty Scorcese and his "Goodfellas" crew would tackle the subject of transplanted Chicago mobsters in the neon desert. My final verdict: they all did a hell of a job. Pesci, as "Nicky Salerno" (all the names have been changed to protect the guilty) is just as horrifying and vicious here as he was as "Tommy DiVito" in "Goodfellas"; Pugnacious, bloodthirsty, bad-tempered, arrogant, and paranoid, but also capable of humor, loyalty and a certain weird charm. Some would say he was just playing the same character again, and yeah, he is, but he's so damn good at it, who cares? Bobby D is superb (what else?) as "Ace Rothstien" -- the micro-managing, ego-maniacial Chicago handicapper and casino boss who trades in on his friendship with mobsters to become a big time player in Vegas, and promptly realizes he's let the snake in the manger. Nicky is what mobsters call a "Cowboy" -- a crazy, reckless hoodlum who thinks with his fists (or his gun, or the sharp end of a pen, or a telephone, or whatever's handy) and creates more wreckage than profit. He also attracts the attention of the Feds and the Nevada Gaming Commission, who soon make Ace's life miserable, and more importantly, begin to interfere with the Mob's ability to "skim" Casino profits back to Chicago. And if you know anything about the Outfit (as it is called there), you know N - O - B - O - D - Y is going to interfere with their profits and get away unscathed. "Casino" is one of those movies where you watch bad guys get their hands on something really big, and drive it straight into the ground. Things blow up, people get beaten and whacked, fortunes are made and squandered, and monster egos crash against each other like bumper cars. There are many similiarities to "Goodfellas" except the stakes are much higher, and like "Goodfellas" there is not a character you really can root for -- Ace is miserly, controlling, egocentric and arrogant, Nicky is a straight up homicidal maniac, and Stone's character is your typical scheming, treacherous hooker-hustler. A lot of people felt this movie was the same thing, with the same cast, done not quite as well, and indeed, "Casino" is not as good as "Fellas" but it is a very good movie all the same. If "Fellas" had never been made, this might be a top-5 Mob movie of all time. I recommend it to anyone with a gangland fetish, 80's nostalgia and strong stomach. And by the way, the actor Frank Vincent, who gets revenge on Pesci in this film (with a baseball bat) for twice getting the best of him in previous Scorsese movies ("Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas"), actually bears a stronger resemblance to the real Tony Spilotro than Joe Pesci does....wierd.
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