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.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.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.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 4 wins & 11 nominations total
- Dominick Santoro
- (as Phillip Suriano)
What Scorsese Film Ranks Highest on IMDb?
What Scorsese Film Ranks Highest on IMDb?
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaMost of the conversations between Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci were improvised. Martin Scorsese would tell them where to start and where to end. The rest was up to them.
- GoofsAfter the failed car bombing, Sam is put into the ambulance feet-first. People are loaded into ambulances head-first, since most of the monitoring equipment is in the front.
- Quotes
Ace Rothstein: [voice-over] In Vegas, everybody's gotta watch everybody else. Since the players are looking to beat the casino, the dealers are watching the players. The box men are watching the dealers. The floor men are watching the box men. The pit bosses are watching the floor men. The shift bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift bosses. I'm watching the casino manager. And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all.
- Crazy credits"This is a fictional story with fictional characters adapted from a true story."
- Alternate versionsFinnish VHS release is cut by 1 minute. Notable cuts were:
- Tony Dogs being tortured with the vice
- Baseball bat killings
- ConnectionsFeatured in Cops (1994)
- SoundtracksMatthäuspassion BMV
Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (uncredited)
Performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Georg Solti (as Sir Georg Solti)
Courtesy of the Decca Record Company Limited, London
by Arrangement with PolyGram Film & TV Licensing
When Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is put in charge of the Tangiers Casino in Las Vegas, he sees it as the perfect chance to erase the obscure past we call carry with us. However, his best friend Nicky (Joe Pesci) is not fond of legitimacy; and when he settles in Vegas to protect him, it's not long until he starts doing some business of his own.
As Nicky himself puts it: "The dollar Always the dollar". But if we go back, Nicky also expresses at the beginning: "It was perfect. Sam was the perfect guy to run the casino and he had me, his best friend, and Ginger, the woman he loved". We see Ginger (a monumental Sharon Stone) at first as Sam sees her, a light in the middle of the room (there's one scene where this translates literally in images, with Robert Richardson's cinematography-that contains a wonderful use of light-putting the rest of the room in a mild darkness, while De Niro stands in awe as Stone walks and works the room accompanied by a constant light), but she is actually the most complex character of the film.
If you approach "Casino" as a movie to see the inside movement of the casino business and its ups and downs (a subject the film manages perfectly), you may not notice the complexity of Stone's character and her performance. But then, if you view the film as the study of the consequences of an arranged marriage and life, you might miss the best element of the film: Joe Pesci's creation of Nicky; something that's indeed better than his work in "Goodfellas".
Ultimately, you may choose to take "Casino" as the story of a long-time friendship and the betrayals that come with the years because people change and want different things from life. Again, this (as the marriage thing) is a subject that the film dominates. That's how brilliant Nicholas Pilleggi's-together with Scorsese-adaptation of his own book is; it covers everything with every detail. They did the same thing with "Goodfellas" and it was so rich that you could get lost in the 'mafia' universe.
Here, as in "Goodfelas" (both film share many similarities, more than anything in the ongoing decay of certain characters and images that seem obvious copies from the 1990 film and speak by themselves, about how great both movies are and that these similarities don't change that fact at all), you have to try to follow every plot line in order to witness every scene exactly as what it means in the movie.
It's the only way you'll enjoy the many conversations between Sam and Nick that lie between the best of the film and, besides showing that De Niro is the best when it comes to calming someone down and/or persuading him to make another decision; but Pesci is better because his stubbornness allows him to evade discussions and therefore cause the other more trouble (also that both know each other by heart so the work together is pure pleasure), are crucial to its development.
The narration comes and goes during the film, in present or past time, generating more confusion for the viewer. This is all after the first hour and a half, and if you're not hypnotized by the film's spell at that point, something must be wrong. Is the movie too long? Yes, if the spell didn't work on you; but if you're already connected with the characters and don't want to get out, it makes no difference if it lasts three or five hours.
- jpschapira
- Mar 10, 2008
The Movies of Martin Scorsese
The Movies of Martin Scorsese
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- Sòng Bạc
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $52,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $42,512,375
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $9,946,480
- Nov 26, 1995
- Gross worldwide
- $116,112,375
- Runtime2 hours 58 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1