When you step into a casino, whether as an experienced player or someone who’s never been, the place is designed around noise, lighting, and excitement. It’s a place where you can let go and enjoy yourself. Usually, casinos feature lots of games where people can test their skills and luck. From poker to roulette, there’s plenty of options for gamblers to choose from. Although there may be some tutting and disappointment when things don’t go well, most of the time people are having a blast!
Despite its dark themes and brutally edited sequences, Casino is a fun movie to watch. It’s a period piece that imagines Sin City as it was, not as it is now, and Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are the perfect choices to play the iconic pair of crime lords who run the Tangiers Casino. The film is also a celebration of hustle and street smarts, and a reminder that there was once an elegant, adult-only resort town where European royalty and the wealthy gathered to gamble and spend their fortunes.
Casino is a heist movie with heart and a sense of style. But it’s also a meditation on the corrosive effects of gambling and the way that greed and addiction corrupt even the most well-intentioned people. Like Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls a few years later, it captures a moment in time when violent criminality was in vogue, and it’s hard to imagine a filmmaker tackling this subject with more conviction than Scorsese.