Few films have captured the true grit of Sin City like Casino. It’s a movie that shows the underbelly of this town built on vice and Scorsese isn’t afraid to open the closet and let us see what’s inside.
He’s aided by a terrific cast, starting with a masterful Bobby De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein who owns the Tangiers hotel and casino in Las Vegas. The mob backs him, but he’s also running his own rackets. He falls for a call girl, Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone) and has to walk a fine line between his professional life and his personal one.
Like all good mob movies, there are no really good guys here. Everyone is mired in greed, avarice, treachery and violence. But the movie is so engrossing that even viewers who dislike this subject matter can’t help but feel sorry for these characters when they finally get their comeuppance.
The movie lays bare the intricate web of corruption that swirled around this tiny little gambling spot in Nevada. It had tendrils that reached into politics, the Teamsters unions and even the Chicago mob. And of course there was the mob itself, with its own internal conflicts and power struggles.
Scorsese captures all of this with a crisp and tight editing style. He’s a master of camera movements, angles and framing such that the film is always moving forward and never slowing down. He has a great sense of what Pauline Kael called “film sense” that allows him to know exactly what shot should follow another. He also knows when to use close-ups and when to pull back for a wider view of the action.