Violence, sexuality and greed come together to the accompaniment of Scorcese. Sharon Stone gives a strong performance as his wife, Ginger, while Joe Pesci portrays Rothstein's lifelong friend, the violent and unstable Santoro. In Casino it's the greed that destroys everything, the authorities are just an esoteric entity (FBI agents landing planes on a golf course) along the edges of this playing field where the main characters end up turning on each other. Robert De Niro stars as 'Ace' Rothstein, the gambler with Mafia connections who runs a large Vegas casino, the Tangiers. The authorities in Goodfellas are much more real and it's the paranoia about getting pinched that eventually destroys the crew. Vegas even tolerates Nicky for while until he really starts to operate outside the set of already crooked lines established by the corrupted officials. In Casino we are repeatedly told and shown how everyone is in on the scam and no one cares as long as the right palms are greased, ppl hired etc. In Goodfellas we are shown one crew of criminals out to make a buck any way they can. Macy, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin, Shawn Hatosy. In an old school Las Vegas casino, its top gambling jinx breaks his curse when he falls in love, much to his boss' consternation. Martin Scorsese puts together this beautiful piece of cinema depicting the mafia inner workings of 1970s Las Vegas, and the critical consensus is, 'Yeah, that was okay, but not as good as GoodFellas.' Award ceremonies hardly even recognized it at all, with the exception of Sharon Stone's performance. I think the reason Casino ends up being a much stronger commentary on capitalism in America is that we get to see much more of how the state and national governments were enabling the gangsters. The Cooler (2003) R 101 min Drama, Romance.
